TomTom for iPhone is one of my favorite apps. Almost a year after buying the app, I finally decided to splurge for the $20/year subscription to live traffic info and I’m impressed.
It sends me to work on the same route almost every morning, the only exception being major road construction or addicents along the usual route.
Every evening, it regularly selects from two different routes depending on the exact traffic conditions.
I’m one of those people that in the past has been cursed to always choose the slowest route, but thanks to TomTom I no longer worry about that.
I figure the $20/year subscription saves me 5-10 minutes a day which works out to a cost of $0.50 to $1 per hour of my time saved. And that’s just on my regular 7 mile commute to and from work – on longer trips to places I’m not familiar with it saves me even more time and I appreciate how it gives me a much more accurate estimation of how long it will take me to get there.
The only cons to the traffic are if you don’t have unlimited data, it does use your data, and it only has traffic data for highways and not for city streets.
Lately I’ve been doing a lot of iPhone troubleshooting for my family members and have saved them a few trips to the Genius Bar. Let’s hope these fixes save you a trip too.
Dad thought his GPS was broken because the TomTom app could not locate his current position. However, the GPS could locate him on the Maps app so I knew it wasn’t really broken. To fix this we went into Settings > General > Location Services and we found that the TomTom app had not been allowed to use his current location. When an app asks you if it can use your current location and your current location is essential to the functionality of that app you need to choose the allow option or the app won’t work.
Then dad had so many apps launched with the new multitasking feature in iOS 4 that it wouldn’t allow him to launch any more apps (I haven’t encountered this problem myself so I have no idea how many apps he was running at once). Double click the home button (hard circle button) then all the apps you’re currently running will show up in a bar at the bottom and you can scroll through and find an app to close. To close it press on the icon and then a minus sign will appear which you can press to exit the app.
When you get a new iPhone and transfer over all your settings from your old iPhone, your passwords do not transfer. My sister went almost a year and a half not being able to send email from her iPhone because she thought you couldn’t reenter your SMTP password. You can by going to Settings > Mail, Contacts Calenders > select the appropriate mail account > Account Info > Outgoing Mail Server SMTP > Primary Server and then you can enter the password. You have the dig through quite a few menus so I understand why should couldn’t find it. And of course, two weeks after I showed her how to do this she got yet another new iPhone and we had to do it all over again.
Let me know if you have an iPhone problem I can help you with.
My 32gb iPhone 4 is scheduled for delivery today! If you’re an iPhone owner, new or old, then these iPhone tips and tricks are just for you:
Since I’ve got a bunch of iTunes credit saved up now, I decided to splurge on the TomTom for iPhone application that provides turn by turn directions while you’re driving.
My absolute favorite thing about the iPhone is that with it, I only need one gadget in my purse. My iPhone is replacing my need for a separate cell phone, iPod, Kindle, handheld gaming system, and now turn by turn GPS device.
I didn’t get the GPS system in my car when I bought it because it would’ve added an extra $3000 to the cost. At times I’ve wished I would have spent that extra $3000, but now I’ve got that functionality for $49.95 which is a whole lot cheaper.
The TomTom app is normally $99.99 but through December 28, 2009 only it’s half price so I went ahead and grabbed it now. If you’re thinking about getting it, hurry up and save yourself $50.
If you have a 3g or 3gs iPhone, you do not need the TomTom car kit. If you have an original iPhone or an iPod touch, you can buy the TomTom car kit to add real GPS and be able to use the app but personally, I’d just put the cost of the car kit towards upgrading my phone if I didn’t already have a 3g iPhone.
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