Pocket PC Thoughts: Prairies to the Coast - A Ride With iGuidance 3.0

Introduction
Built in navigation systems have become the latest ‘must have’ gadget to be included in new cars and as the technology becomes cheaper and easier to integrate, they are starting to show up in more and more affordable vehicles. For those of us who cannot afford to get a new car each couple of years, or who use other modes of transportation to get around, iNav (and others) provide software and maps which can be easily installed on your existing PPC. The unit does need to be already GPS-enabled (either built-in or via a plug-in or Bluetooth-connected unit) since the package does not include a GPS receiver module.

Installation
iGuidance is normally shipped on a DVD (or a 3 CD set) which includes the software, a MapLoader application for your desktop/laptop PC, and map data for Canada and the US including Hawaii, Alaska, and Nunavut Territory. A version for Europe is also available. Unfortunately, the Installation Guide provided with the package is a little out of date (screen shots don’t match the current version of the application), but it has enough information to get the job done and the install itself is relatively straightforward. When the DVD is first inserted, it will automatically start up the installation program, and asks what type of device you want to load.


Figure 1: Selecting the type of install.

I was surprised to see the AutoPC/UMPC option, as it’s the first time I’ve seen that available from an application. Loading the MapLoader application on your desktop is a good idea, since this seems to be the only way to get map data onto your PPC. Once you click on Next, the iGuidance application is loaded onto the PPC using the usual Activesync partnership.

After the application is loaded, the setup routine loads the MapLoader application onto the desktop and initiates it to allow you to select which maps you would like loaded and a location for them.


Figure 2: Using the MapLoader on the Desktop. Click on the image for the full size image. (38KB)

iNav strongly recommends you store map data on an SD or CF card, since loading even a small amount onto the device memory could impede working space for route recalculation, etc. The MapLoader gives you the option to load either regions of the US or Canada (as shown above) or specific cities. In some cases because of the detail involved, this might be a better option if you do a lot of traveling within larger metropolis’. The maps are loaded to the iNav iGuidance/Maps folder on the selected card. (Much better than to the My Documents folder).

A word of caution here. The maps are very detailed and it’s not clear to me how iGuidance handles management of map data once it’s running. There are no specific options to load particular maps within iGuidance itself, so I suspect that it either loads all available map data, or selects maps close to your current location or your destination. In either case, loading all of North America, even if you have the capacity on your storage card, would likely bring the application to its knees.

iGuidance does provide a help file in its application which is fairly useful, but I was hoping for a User Guide that I could browse through first.


Figure 3: A shot of the table of contents from iGuidance’s Help file, available from the application.

Unfortunately this isn’t provided on the DVD, but I found a copy on the iNav website which isn’t quite as detailed, but at least it’s printable.

I installed iGuidance on an HTC Galaxy 100 running WM5 (aka Q-Tek G100), which has a built in SiRFStarIII GPS receiver. Although the installation guide for WM5 provides descriptions of how to set up the Bluetooth connection and pairing, I ignored this and just selected the ‘Auto Detect’ option and everything seemed to work just fine.