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First Impressions
I bought Copilot Live from the app store because I needed a GPS navigation software for my iPhone and didn’t want to spend to much. 34 EUR was a reasonable price and Copilot Live had decent online reviews so I went for it.
The best way to go about it is to download the app on your computer via iTunes and then sync it on your iPhone. When you first start the app on the iPhone, it requires you to enter a user name and a password which will be used as an identifier for live services.
Over the last months I used Copilot Live extensively in city and suburban traffic in the Le Mans area. I also took it on a long distance highway trip: 850 km from Le Mans to Orcières-Merlettes in the French Southern Alps and back again.
Route Planing and Guiding
Copilot live comes with the latest Navteq maps which are very accurate and up to date. I generally found Navteq maps to be better maintained than TeleAtlas. Take my address for example. I live in a brand new neighborhood. The whole quarter was built from ground up a couple of years back. Four years ago there was a corn field where my house is today. There were no streets, no houses nothing. All GPS devices with fairly recent Navteq maps knew my address from the day I moved in. Many GPS units with TeleAtlas maps, still don’t know about the street I live on and it’s only been a couple of weeks since I can look up my address on Google Maps. That’s really annoying, trust me. It’s been a pain for me to get anything delivered. I had to meet the delivery trucks in the village center and have them follow me home or spend time on the phone guiding them around. So, to make the story short, Copilot Live has Navteq maps and that’s good.
Maps are nicely rendered and smoothly animated. The auto zoom features is comparable with Navigon’s but inferior to TomTom’s. If you use the 2D view like me that could become problem.
Copilot is very accurate when showing your position on the road, way more accurate than my TomTom unit. Everything is right on spot, in the city as well as on the highway, and that by using just the internal GPS receiver. Turns are exactly where they’re supposed to be and the software is never late when speaking out directions. Copilot actually accurately show my position on medium roundabouts, a feature I’ve never seen before.
As far as route planing goes, you might not always agree the route Copilot Live suggest is the most efficient one, but it will always get you to the destination.
For my long highway Copilot estimates a trip time of about 9 hours and 15 minutes. That’s about 30 minutes more than what my old TomTom unit and Google Maps calculate, which is 8 hours and 40 minutes. It took me 8 hours and 45 minutes to get there so I’d say Copilot Live is a less accurate than the others, but than again, that’s really a minor point.
Where I highly disagree with Copilot is suburban trip planing. To drive from my place to the Le Mans train station in the morning, for example, the fastest way to go is via the city ring. I know it, TomTom knows it, Navigon knows it, Google Maps knows it but Copilot insists that I should through the city center. Which is a huge waste of time. Even if I ignore it and go on the ring, Copilot would try to get me off the ring and trough the city center until the very last moment. All this makes me wonder how much time Copilot would make me waste in areas I don’t know so well. I mean yes Copilot would definitely take you to your destination, but I seriously doubt the route is would be an optimal one.
POIs and Speed Cameras
Copilot has an impressive POI database, definitely better any of the TomTom units I’ve ever used. Every hotel, restaurant of tourist attraction I could think of, Copilot knew it.
I don’t like how speed cameras are announced. You can’t configure a beep or some other sound. Copilot insists on speaking out to you: “Attention, point of interest. Speed camera”. Really annoying and useless. By the time Copilot finishes announcing the speed camera you’re already in front of it.
Conclusions
All in one, ALK’s Copilot Live for iPhone will get you at your destination. Chances are it will take you through city centers rather than city rings and express ways and time estimations might not be very accurate. TomTom and Navigon’s both compute far better routes but then again, Copilot is at least twice as cheap.
It’s been a week or so since Twitter have released their rebranded version of Tweetie. I didn’t use Tweetie in the past because it wasn’t free but now that Twitter took over and gave it away I decided to give it a try and see how it compares with Twitterrific.
Overall I get the feeling Twitterrific is slightly easier to use but that might be because I was already used to it. Both apps have the same basic features. You get to post tweets, attach pictures or video clips from the media library. You can also snap pictures with the built in camera while you’re writing your tweets. You can reply, retweet, and do all the other things you do on Twitter.
Both apps let you embed location information into your tweets. Where Twitter for iPhone is better is that is uses Tweeter’s geotagging feature so you can include location information without wasting precious characters in your tweets. With Twitterrific you can inser a link to google maps but that uses up a certain number of characters.
Another good thing about Twitter for iPhone is that you can use it landscape mode. Twitterrific can only be used in portrait mode.
So because of the geotagging feature and landscape mode I decided to use Twitter for iPhone for now.
I don’t really like the headphones that come with the iPhone and iPod. The isolation level they provide is very low so unless you’re in a perfectly silent room you have to seriously pump up the volume in order to be able to hear anything. Not good for your ears. If you try to walk just a bit faster than your grandma they keep falling out of your ears.
So if you want to listen to music from your iPhone or iPod while anywhere but your silent living room, you’re in the market for a pair of earbuds. I already had a pair of Sennheiser earbuds which I used to connect to the iPod when running and walking. Excellent earbuds really, but there is no a mike, and for the iPhone you need one.
I did a little bit of research and I stumbled over the Ultimate Ears MetroFi 170vi. I was just about to discard them, seeing the low price tag, but then I decided to dig a little bit more. I did a couple of searches on google and found a bunch of good reviews. Seemed to be exactly what I was looking for: excellent sound, mike included, iPhone compatible, decent sound isolation. Plus, with a price tag of 24 EUR on amazon.fr, won’t have to worry about breaking or forgetting them on the train.
So I ordered them and guess what: not disappointed! The sound is comparable, if not equivalent to my old Sennheisers, which by the way, were more than twice more expensive. I used them on the train, in the subway and in the street with significant traffic around me. The level of isolation these headphones provide is really good and you can clearly hear the music even when setting the volume to low levels. The microphone works fine and there is a button I can use to answer calls or hang up. The only think missing is a couple of buttons to control the volume, so you’ll have to keep your iPhone handy in case you need to adjust it
Opera Mini for iPhone is now available on the app store as a free app. It is the first browsing app that Apple approves which doesn’t use the Safari rendering engine.
I installed it this morning on my 3GS and I can say I am impressed. I disabled both WiFi and 3G and used it over EDGE, and I can say it’s blazing fast, way faster than Safari. I even think Opera Mini running on EDGE is visibly faster than Safari running on 3G. If battery life is a concern for you, then install Opera and disable WiFi and 3G. This will improve your battery life significantly while also improving your browsing experience.
The app behaves a little different than Safari, in which the pinch to zoom gesture doesn’t seem to work, but that wasn’t problem. I barely used that in Safari anyways and I really don’t miss it in Opera. Tabbed browsing is also a little different. I can’t decide if it’s better than Safari’s or not, all I can say is that it’s comfortable and easy to use.
One nice improvement over Safari is the preferred sites view at start-up: each time you start Opera it will show you a small bookmarks grid, each bookmark being a snapshot of the site it points to. Very handy if you have a set of sites you access frequently.
I took my iPhone at the Orange shop on Champs Élyseés yesterday and they found the problem. The SIM card was malfunctioning. So they swapped it with a new one and now everything works fine. Finally a good point for Orange France.
I ordered an iPhone 3GS with Orange France and it arrived three weeks ago. I also requested my mobile phone number to be transferred to Orange from Bouygues Telecom, my previous provider. Transferring the number from one provider to the other takes about 2 weeks. In the meantime, Orange provides you with a temporary phone number you can use until the real one gets transferred.
One detail that stroke me is that even though Apple made a nice effort to reduce the size of the iPhone packaging in order to reduce its environmental impact, Orange France is shipping it a cardboard box about 12 times its size. Way to go Orange!
So I received the iPhone by mail. I inserted the SIM card and I activated it using iTunes, but couldn’t use it immediately because the line was not active yet. To prevent fraud, Orange France is sending an activation code by postal mail. When you get it you have to call an 0800 number, type in the code and normally the line should be activated. Sounds fair, I don’t mind that.
I received the letter containing the activation code a couple of days later and activated the line as per instructions. This is when the trouble started. As soon as I activated the line, the iPhone started to behave in a very weird way. After a reboot, the phone was joining the Orange 3G network but only to loose it about 30 seconds later. After loosing the connection the iPhone was displaying a “No SIM card installed message”.
I took the iPhone to an Orange shop in Le Mans and the people there told me there is nothing they can do. They could have gave a new SIM card, but that would’ve caused the transfer of my previous phone number to fail. They told me I should call Orange tech support to get help. And this is where it gets really hilarious: the Orange tech support service can only be reached from the Orange network or an Orange land line. So here I am with an Orange iPhone, which doesn’t work, being told that I have to call tech support, but I need a working Orange line for that…. That’s smart isn’t it? Way to go Orange France!
So I get back home. I tried to put the iPhone SIM card in an old vanilla phone I have at home, and it worked. I was able to place a call. Completely puzzled, I placed the SIM back in the iPhone and turned it back on and what do you know, it worked! The iPhone was joining Orange’s 3G network, I had internet access and I was able to place and receive calls using my temporary number. And it worked perfectly for two weeks. My old number got transferred as expected and everything was fine.
It worked until yesterday, when I was driving back home from vacation and all of a sudden I noticed my iPhone had lost connection and was displaying a “No Service” message. Which was weird because I was in the suburbs around Lyon, an area with excellent 3G coverage. I rebooted the iPhone and surprise: the “No SIM card installed” message was back! When I got back home I restored the iPhone’s factory setting using iTunes as per Orange’s trouble shooting guide, but things only got worth: after rebooting, the iPhone is displaying a message box saying: “Waiting for activation. This may take a while”. This message is replaced a few of seconds later by the “No SIM card installed” message. When I dismiss the “No SIM card installed” message box, the “Waiting for activation” one comes back up, but nothing happens, it stays up for ever.
So tomorrow I’ll take the iPhone back to an Orange shop, see if they manage to find a solution. In the mean time, I’m stranded with no phone.
Speaks my language. You can read about this here. Microsoft has bullied a friend of mine recently into giving up a domain name that was rightfully his. After Microsoft lawyers took at him my friend had to change his domain name. He tried to resist but he quickly realized resistance was pointless – he couldn’t afford to fight an army of lawyers. As a result his business was hurt. Go India!
So, Honda has announced the pricing of its new Insight hybrid for France. Even though just like for the Prius, its fuel economy numbers look less impressive in Europe than they do in the US, mostly because of Europe’s large fleet of diesel cars, the Insight should be a smashing hit.
This is a car the size of the Opel Astra, VW Golf, Renault Megane, Citroen C4, Toyota Auris, Honda Civic and so on, with a decent boot and a reliability only the Toyota and the other Honda can match. Its fuel consumption is only bested by the Prius or by way more expensive diesels, and its price is very competitive.
The entry level Honda Insight is very well equipped. The typical similarly equipped car from the competition is priced around 22000 Euro. The Honda Insight has a initial price tag of 19990 Euro. But that’s not what you re going to pay. France has got a system in place where if you buy an environmental friendly car you get a certain amount of instant tax credit. The Insight, just like the Prius, will qualify for 2000 Euro instant tax credit. Instant means that you don’t even have to wait to file your tax report in order to get your money back, the 2000 Euro are immediately taken off the price. It’s the dealer’s business to get its money from the state later. So you as a customer are not going to write a check for 19990 Euro, for the new Honda Insight, but one for 17990 Euro.
But that’s not all. If you buy the Insight to replace a car that’s 10 or more years old, you’ll get another 1000 Euro instant tax credit. So you dump your old car, Honda’s in charge of properly disposing of it and the price of the Insight gets down to 16990 Euro.
And all this is before you even started to negotiate. Because you should be able to, I mean all these reductions are coming from the state, Honda didn’t make any effort for the 3000 Euro. In general, french car dealers are open to negotiation so with a little bit of luck you’ll be able to get the new Honda Insight Hybrid car for about 16500 Euro, maybe even 16000 Euro if you’re lucky.
So, to sum this up, you’ll get a car that is well equipped, has great fuel economy, is more reliable than most of the competition, and is environmental friendly features qualify it for tax credits that make it about 15% to 18% cheaper for the paying customer.
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