Fwd: tomtom on the Neo1973

Ian Darwin ian at darwinsys.com
Tue May 29 22:57:50 CEST 2007


Ian Darwin wrote:

> I think you're right; after the first 250,000 or so Neo 1973 phones have 
> been sold, they *may* look again.  There are currently under 350 
> signups, so I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you. If you just want to 
> use a $350 Neo as a $200 GPS, you might as well spend the time on a 
> mashup of RoadMap and OpenStreetMap.

In re-reading my post I see it could be taken as critical of the 
project; no, I am a big fan of the project. I just don't think people 
should expect instant recognition from big vendors that are used to 
dealing in huge (comparatively) sales volumes. According to tomtom.com, 
as of this very month they have sold TEN MILLION GPS units.

It costs most "big" software companies many, many thousands of dollars 
to do what we think of as a "port" because of their overhead, and they 
won't generally do it just to be "cool" but because they expect to 
recoup what it costs. I would be glad to be proven wrong in certain 
individual cases, but this is how the system works in general.

And besides, wouldn't you rather have an open source program drawing 
your maps?




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