Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Sat Nav Confusion

In the "good old days", and I'm talking two or three years ago here, it was simple. If you wanted a sat nav solution on your phone, you decided which flavour (Tom Tom, Navigon, Copilot etc), paid (for most) downloaded and off you'd go, physically and metaphorically.
If you wanted to do something daft like go abroad you could usually pay for and download the specific map for your solution, such as North America.
I bought, and to this day have used ALK's Copilot. It was cheaper than most, and for me did just the job. I even bought the North America version when we went on a trip to Orlando a couple of years ago.
We're off to Orlando, with a trip to Miami thrown in for good measure again this year, so I looked for the CP North America version in the App Store (I have long since deleted it from my iPhone).
I couldn't find it, until someone pointed out it would be under "Purchased Apps", whereupon I duly downloaded it again. But as I was doing so it occurred to me that not having found it listed in the App Store, it might now be out of date.
Back to App Store for a quick search on "Copilot" brought me to a grinding halt. There are now a myriad of versions of Copilot.
There are the usual suspects such as CoPilot Live Premium (add country's or region of your choice), some with HD versions, one called Copilot GPS and versions called CoPilot Truck - for truckers presumably.
Anyway, I was confused about whether my re-downloadable, but a couple of years old version was still valid so fired off an email to Copilot. They responded and said it was out of date (no surprise there), and that I should get the CoPilot GPS version (free), so I did.
It's a universal app which means it downloads onto my iPad as well as my iPhone. Firing it up I was asked to register, then have to choose my maps. Well UK & Europe obviously. Then N America. Oh, hang on, that'll be £6.99.
Oh well, I need it.
Check out my iPad, and Copilot GPS is there. I downloaded UK/Europe. hen N America. Oh hang on. To purchase another region, I have to upgrade to full turn by turn instructions. That'll be £17 odd.
What's going on here?
I already have Copilot Live 8 on my iPhone, which I paid £25 a few years ago, plus, a re downloadable but apparently out of date N America version. (Which I think cost me about £7 on a discount promotion).
Now Copilot have told me I should use the free Copilot GPS, where I have to pay nearly £7 for the N America maps after downloading my one free map (UK/Europe), then on my "universal" app on another device it looks like I have to pay £17+ to "upgrade" to allow me to download the N America maps!
And then to top it all, unannounced, I get a tweet from @copilot_us saying I should download the Copilot Live Premium US & Canada app (not just the US version) which is contrary to what they advised in their support email!
Confused? Oh yes!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad Mini

UPDATE

Further communication from Copilot via Twitter directed me to a comparison page. After further consideration, I think the Premium version is what I need. keep my existing UK & Europe version, and get the US & Canada Version too.

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