Subj : I am thinking... To : Accession From : Nightfox Date : Tue Dec 26 2023 14:53:19 Re: I am thinking... By: Accession to Nightfox on Mon Dec 25 2023 08:11 am N>> You don't have to go to the dealership to upgrade them. It seems it's N>> typically just a flash memory card with recent maps that they need. I N>> bought a new car recently which has GPS, and I bought a SD card for its N>> navigation from eBay for $40, and it works just fine. Ac> While I have seen this feature recently with newer vehicles. GPS was Ac> around in vehicles before USB was. During that time, I'm fairly certain Ac> you either needed to take it to the dealership for an upgrade, or buy a CD Ac> that was upwards of $300 in order to update. Yeah, for an older car GPS, that makes sense. N>> Also, I find it more convenient than getting my phone out and plugging it N>> in, etc.. But also, I currently don't have a cell phone holder for my Ac> To be honest, if I'm using my phone, I don't bother plugging it into the Ac> vehicle and just use the phone's GPS by itself. Seems to be more up to Ac> date, and the voice assistant is much better - as far as letting you know Ac> there's a speed check ahead, or an accident with possible alternate Ac> routes, etc. I might do that more often, if I had a phone holder in my car, but I don't.. I did have one for a while that clipped onto the rear view mirror in the middle, which I thought would be more out of the away than one that sits on the dashboard or something, but I found it to be a bit klunky.. I feel like a lot of the cell phone holders for a car could be klunky in some way, as they often clip to one of the vents or sit on the dashboard with suction cups, etc.. Ac> Either way, all Android Auto and Apple Carplay really does is basically Ac> mock what's already on your phone anyways. That and it uses your vehicle's Ac> speakers. While I wouldn't mind using the hands free calling through those Ac> apps, the GPS doesn't really gain anything between those apps and just Ac> using your phone by itself, IMO. I think the main advatnage with Android Auto and Apple Carplay is that you don't have to use a cell phone holder in your car. With mine, you can plug in your phone and put your phone inside the center arm rest and use Android Auto, which I think is a more elegant solution than using a phone holder of some kind. But I'd probably only really use Android Auto for GPS and phone calls - and the car stereo allows phone calls via bluetooth already (without Android Auto). N>> That is nice. It seems a car GPS can detect heavy traffic, too - I had a N>> GPS in my last car too, and I had a route that I used to drive fairly N>> regularly, and sometimes it would route me differently, and I think it's N>> because it was able to get traffic data from somewhere and route me around N>> bad traffic. Ac> You think? It didn't tell you there was something going on up ahead and Ac> that it found a faster route for you? If not, I think the GPS just gets Ac> wierd at times and routes you the fastest way it thinks you should go. Sometimes it would tell me it detected heavy traffic and was re-calculating, but sometimes the route it would take me from the get-go would be a bit different than last time and it wouldn't say why it routed me a certain way. If it found a route it thinks is faster, I just assumed it knew it was faster because it was getting traffic data from somewhere.. There must be some way it would know which route is faster (usually the fastest & most direct route would have been the freeway, but sometimes it would route me through city/side roads for part of the way). Ac> home. From my house, there's basically two ways I can take to the freeway, Ac> with not much difference in time, really. Turn on my GPS on my phone in Ac> the driveway, and I'd bet 50% of the time it would tell me to go one of Ac> the ways, and the other times the other way. Almost like it's confusing Ac> itself at times. ;) :) Nightfox --- SBBSecho 3.20-Linux * Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137) .