On our new Garmin GPS...

I'm on a roll, of late.  After tackling our "reading" problem with the Nook, I've decided to tackle another problem of mine, which is maps.

Yes, yes, I know, everyone is all over map - pun intended - about the snafu of the iPhone Map that came out very recently.  Not that I care much about iPhone map, I do fully appreciate why it's such an important application for daily use.  The location service on the smartphones are perfect for keeping tab on consumers, going local.  It's perfect for selling personalized mobile ad, wherever the users might be.  Social media is all hyped up, and suddenly everyone wants to know where everyone is, probably down to the precision of the exact cube in the bathroom.  Big money is to be had.  Big wars will be fought (just look at the infighting among Google Maps, Bing Maps, and now iPhone Map).

The scale of my problem is much smaller.  I don't want smartphone apps to give me maps; that has nothing to do with the quality of the new iPhone Map versus Google or Bing Map on every other smartphone.  I don't want to marry my map needs with a data plan for the phone.  I don't want the map providers to tie me to other search or purchase/browser history.  I don't want mobile ad; period.  I get what I need; I don't want to be pushed to buy things.  And I'm not a stalker, I don't need such hyper needs to track everybody else.

I go about my navigation needs the old-fashioned ways.  I have physical maps and atlas, and I check with physical maps and Google Map ahead of time for driving instructions.  That usually work out quite well, except when it doesn't (at times).

I'm sure it happens to everybody else, of how it's like when the map instructions from Google (or Bing, or whoever) are off.  Or, you make a wrong turn, or you miss an intersection; and suddenly everything is off.  Big ooops.  And then, there are detours, traffic jams or accidents, or having to fumble over maps under flashlight in the dark; the works.  For some reasons, those situations happen to me quite often.  My kids have come to expect that.  My son would volunteer to read the maps or instructions for me.  My daughter would periodically ask me, "Are you sure where we are?"

I have not planned for a single-purpose device again, as I've noted before, but there is something appealing about a special purpose device like a GPS.  For one, I only need to pay for the device once, and I won't have to worry about the need to pay monthly fees (for phone data plan) for just checking maps; never mind surfing the web which is not essential to me when I'm on the road.  I can download maps for other countries when I go on trips, and I won't have to worry about getting a local cell phone plan in foreign countries, just to get the smartphone map apps to work.  The satellite tracking is better than triangulation of cell phone towers too, particularly for those cell phone providers who have spotty coverage; in short, I need my maps to be accurate, and I need complete coverage.

So, after the Nook, I've decided to get a Garmin GPS.  As with every other gadgets, once the hump of initial setup is over, things go quite smoothly.  That includes registering the device with Garmin and the lifetime map update (yes, I want updated maps whenever it's available), and downloading the maps which take a good long time of 8+ hours.  But after that, everything's a breeze.  Battery life looks very decent, and I don't have to charge it that often.

It's funny how, for once, my kids sigh a breath of relief after I got it working.  Their relief?  "We won't get lost again."  Hope so...

Granted, I won't give up on my physical maps and checking out Google or Bing Maps before trips.  I don't like to rely solely on electronic devices.  More importantly, I want to actively use my brain whenever I can, rather than mindlessly following driving instructions from some gadget's voice commands.  I'm human, afterall, ain't I!?!


PS:  I've been extremely happy with the "behavioral development" re the Nook so far.  I have worried that my son would spend too much time just playing games.  As it turns out, almost one month into it, my kids have been all too happy to read the few hundred books (most of them classics) that we've got on it so far.  I know, for a fact, that my son would not have volunteered to read up on Two Thousand Leagues Beneath The Sea from library shelf, but he's all too happy to read it in the car during journeys; and he loves it.  On the other hand, my daughter whose interest is in reading on the Nook only, is getting comfortable with gadgets, which is a good thing too.

PPS:  Although if Barnes & Nobles would ask of me, I would certain offer my humble opinion, as a user, of what works and what doesn't.  There are times when things are simply not intuitive at all (ie. I have to dig it out, or search online to find the answers).  I don't know who design the human interface of the Nook, but it does need works.