Mobile phones

[John the Monkey]

IPhone 7 too. View attachment 376012

So they cost a bomb, are psychologically addictive, and they burst into flame the moment you turn your back. They're not really selling themselves to me.

Not really - iirc, Note 7 aside (and there are some who argue that the majority of those would have been fine) phones that spontaneously burst into flame are either edge cases, or those that have suffered damage to the battery in some way, iirc. I'm surprised that a chap with your devil may care attitude isn't carrying two or three, purely for snook cocking purposes, Drago.

 

[Andrew_P]

Yesterday was genuinely the first time ever I have let Google navigate me fully all the way in rush hour, to be honest I was really impressed. Normally I make it recalculate when I have used it before as where it was taking me didn't seem logical.

It took me on roads I never knew and would have never used and I didn't sit in traffic once and that was from Gatwick to Sutton in Rush hour 8am with the M23 Southbound closed. I reckon it saved me 20-25 minutes! Looking online is it is both impressive and a bit scary, Google is drawing info and traffic speed from other peoples phones as long as they have location switched on and directing people like me around it. Is it really making these complex decisions live and real time just for me to get to A to B? Some of the moves would have saved a minute or so but I guess it all counts. Because I do not drive a lot I have never used it before as a 100% guidance tool normally only near the place I am going to if I do not know where I am going, but yesterday it was absolute chaos where I was starting out from and I had to get to an appointment. Sad as it sounds it saved the day I would have been very late, also I might not ignore the instructions in future again. I may also make sure my location is off, not sure I want to be part of Googles hive mind, although I enjoy the benefit! :-)

I would imagine the standalone Satnav are like the one built into my car, using roadside data and or FM radio. It is very slow at catching up with problems and it is not really live routing.

 

[Andrew_P]

My built in satnav seems to be as 'live' as Google traffic maps. I think it depends on the particular system and what data sources they use.

Mine is built in to a top of the range 35k BMW................ Built in 2004 So I suppose common sense should have told me things had moved on.

Like all good old BMW things it is not working now anyway the DVD map (*LOL) player is broken and iDrive shorts out but that is another story. I was curious to what data aftermarket and new cars use. Wonder if Google is selling their data? Cannot think of any other way they could draw such live data at obscure junctions. This thing was rerouting me past three or four cars waiting at a T-junction taking me to the next one along. Also a bit disappointed to report by this stage I had no choice but to follow instruction from a fecking phone I had lost my sense of direction and would have struggled to find my out of the back doubles at any reasonable speed.

 

[summerdays]

Yesterday was genuinely the first time ever I have let Google navigate me fully all the way in rush hour, to be honest I was really impressed. Normally I make it recalculate when I have used it before as where it was taking me didn't seem logical.

It took me on roads I never knew and would have never used and I didn't sit in traffic once and that was from Gatwick to Sutton in Rush hour 8am with the M23 Southbound closed. I reckon it saved me 20-25 minutes! Looking online is it is both impressive and a bit scary, Google is drawing info and traffic speed from other peoples phones as long as they have location switched on and directing people like me around it. Is it really making these complex decisions live and real time just for me to get to A to B? Some of the moves would have saved a minute or so but I guess it all counts. Because I do not drive a lot I have never used it before as a 100% guidance tool normally only near the place I am going to if I do not know where I am going, but yesterday it was absolute chaos where I was starting out from and I had to get to an appointment. Sad as it sounds it saved the day I would have been very late, also I might not ignore the instructions in future again. I may also make sure my location is off, not sure I want to be part of Googles hive mind, although I enjoy the benefit! :-)

I would imagine the standalone Satnav are like the one built into my car, using roadside data and or FM radio. It is very slow at catching up with problems and it is not really live routing.

We went away for the weekend and the motorway at Newport was standstill rather than its normal very busy. Google did a fairly good job of redirecting us, but I was looking at one bit where it wanted us to do a right turn and assumed there would be lights. There wasn't and it was directing us onto a slip road on the other side of the road. Luckily I over ruled and it then redirected us to the slip road about another 400 m along the road on our side. It isn't perfect!

 

[Dan B]

Cannot think of any other way they could draw such live data at obscure junctions. This thing was rerouting me past three or four cars waiting at a T-junction taking me to the next one along. Also a bit disappointed to report by this stage I had no choice but to follow instruction from a fecking phone I had lost my sense of direction and would have struggled to find my out of the back doubles at any reasonable speed.

Once upon a time we used to call that "rat running" [yellow face thing]