tflight

I can clarify this. Initial news of the device came out over a year ago. At that time I believe 5.0 was current. So at the time the information was written the device was planned to have version 5.0. Thus when it is released I expect it will have whatever version is current at that time.

I use TomTom Navigator 5 on my Treo. I've also used DeLorme's Street Atlas 2006 Handheld on my Treo as well.

Sounds like the Celestron SkyScout.

It shouldn't make any difference. I suspect they would develop it so that it is universal binary and thus run under rosetta and thus work on all 10.4 macs. I would guess it may be awhile before devleopers start making applications run only on native "macintel" systems.

I would suspect that it will be compatible, however I haven't seen anything to suggest they are guaranteeing any kind of backward compatibility.

I posted an image of the DeLorme PN-20 in case anyone wants a peek.

Mac users have lots to cheer about today, Garmin has announced full support of all software and hardware by the end of 2006. Garmin Announces Mac Support

I do see though that there are plugins available (third party) that will allow you to navigate to a lat/long on the TomTom Go. I posted info about it at GPS Review and you can get the plugin here.

I don't have one right in front of me to test, but from recollection and looking through the product manual I don't believe this is possible. When you enter a custom POI you do it by either keying in the street address or by tapping a point on the screen. I don't believe there is anywhere in the TomTom software that you can directly enter a set of coordinates.

I have used this combination and I've found that it worked quite well. I was a bit concerned about battery life as I didn't have a dual charger to charge both my GPS and the Treo at the same time when I evaluated the software. Battery life on the Treo didn't appear to be much of an issue though and I know a few times I drove for five hours or more with the Treo connected to the GPS via Bluetooth and I didn't have any battery issues. Other than that the software is pretty much just like that on any other TomTom device if you have used any. The Tele Atlas were better than NAVTEQ in some case and worse in other places. The voice directions were loud enough to hear over the car stereo, but I don't listen to music loud in the car. What I really liked was that TomTom had not forgot that the Palm devices have touch screens. Many GPS software packages I've tried on the Treo used buttons and menus that were too small. TomTom's were all large enough that I never needed the stylus to navigate.

It is powered by ST Microelectronics and SiGE chip technologies. I've posted more information that I have about the DeLorme Earthmate GPS PN-20.

I'm pretty excited to check out the new earthmate. A dedicated GPS from a company where the primary business is mapping should be pretty nice.

I've spent quite a bit of time going through SA2006HH. I've written a review of Delorme StreetAtlas 2006 Handheld if you would like to read what I previously wrote. For what you are talking about using it for it is probably worth the $39.95 you might pay for it. For that price you would barely get one state worth of data from other Palm GPS systems. However it does have limitations. If you want to use it to navigate from state to state.... probably forget about it. The maps will take up too much memory and routing on the Palm device will take too much time. But if you want to use it to get around an unfamiliar city and just download the maps from that city it might be worth the small price. Based on what you mention you would be using it for, I think it could be a good match. Let me know if you have any additional questions and I'll help you out how I can.

Nice article. I suppose I'm biased though.

I saw the post, and probably have the qualifications, hardware, and interest but sadly not the time.

The effect of weather on GPS systems really comes down to the unit itself. Keep in mind that aircraft can fly GPS approaches and WAAS approaches into airports when the weather is really bad and descend down to about 200 feet off the ground without being able to see the runway. So when I'm in my plane flying under a cloud deck the same GPS signals you are using to geocache are making it through the clouds to my Garmin GPS sitting in the plane. Some units will have better success then others. So to say that weather affects GPS signals isn't *quite* correct. Some receivers might not work as well in bad weather but the GPS signal itself makes it though fine. Everything is either a solid, liquid, or gas. (Ice, water, clouds). GPS doesn't travel through solids or masses of liquids very well. It passes through gasses just fine (which is good since the entire atmosphere is made up of gasses.) Clouds, fog, etc are all water vapor (i.e. a gas) so GPS signals travel fine through them. GPS signals also normally travel through rain fine. What I've said is probably oversimplifying things a little bit, however you can reference the next two links for more detailed, sophisticated information. There is a good summary of GPS impacting weather at gps tracklog that is the result of a conversation over at the alt.satellite.gps group.

There are already a few petitions out there regarding mac GPS systems and software. Here is one and I know there are others out there as well that are specific to Garmin and DeLorme.

Depending on if you want some really advanced fancy features you might also want to hold out for the anticipated Garmin StreetPilot 7200.

I asked my DeLorme contact about raster imagery and he said "that's all yet to be worked out".

I have a copy of Street Atlas 2006. What is interesting is that they don't appear to use the same data source as others, or perhaps the one they have is a more recent version. Every map I have ever seen of the tiny street I live on is drawn perpendicular to where it should be. Garmin, Lowrance, Google, MSN, etc all have it drawn incorrect.... except DeLorme. For whatever reason (that I'd like to find out) they are the only ones that have drawn it correctly.

Probably nothing more than you know although I will be down at DeLorme in the next few days and I'm planning to try and get some info. Back in January they said the unit would be released in July, it didn't come out then and it didn't come out with the other products they released in August.

Didn't they announce this back in early January?

Which software you use won't have any impact on the quality of the GPS signal. That is entirely up to the receiver. The receiver itself receives the data from satellites and passes it along to the software. (I'm simplifying things a little). Therefore no matter what the software is it will access the same information being received from the GPS receiver.

I agree with you. I already had a copy for some other uses and therefore sometimes find it easier to use it with my GPS... but I can do everything I need do (with my GPS) without VPC. There are some GPS units out there which there doesn't appear to be any good Mac solution for, and those people might need VPC to get around those limitations, but I haven't needed it so far.

You can make that same assessment about any product that claims to be compatible with OS 8 or OS 9. Apple didn't do a great job of explaining this to customers, but OS X is not an upgrade to OS 8 or OS 9. It is an entirely different operating system. Therefore if something says it is compatible with OS 9+ you shouldn't assume it is compatible with OS X. In fact, if something says it is compatible with OS 8 you can almost bet that it won't be compatible with OS X since OS 8 was released over eight years ago now. Apple didn't do a great job of explaining this to people. Here is my rule of thumb FWIW. If something says it is compatible with OS 10.2+ then I only assume that it would be compatible with 10.2 through 10.2.9. I wouldn't assume that it is compatible with 10.3 or 10.4 without them explicitly stating as such. I hope I don't come across sounding like I think you should have known not to purchase that product... that isn't the case at all. It is the fault of Apple, software companies, and hardware companies for confusing version numbering and ambiguous compatibility descriptions.