Apparently TomTom and Microsoft have promised not to sue each other for the next five years. The settlement came soon after TomTom countersued and joined forces with the open source movement.
I can’t decide if I like this or not.
Had some time to kill today, so I surfed the net, reading about my new GPS. Turns out that TomTom uses a 2.6 Linux kernel to run their hardware. It’s modified, of course, but it’s still a Linux kernel.
Why is it that there isn’t a Linux version of the software required to connect it to a computer, then? Why is Linux acceptable in the GPS but not outside it?
I’m sure you’ll all be thrilled to know that my new GPS is working perfectly. It found me a shortcut yesterday. Shorter AND better. Well, I’m thrilled at least.
But Tomtom’s strategy of selling map update services borders on the indecent. The first thing I did when I bought the thing was to update the maps. There’s a “latest map” guarantee, see, meaning that within 30 days of purchase, I’m entitled to map updates. So today I logged on to Tomtom and it hinted that my map was old (God forbid) and that for only €XX, I could have the latest.
If I hadn’t read the manual I would have thought that there was actually an update available, and that it would cost me money. As things stand, I do have the latest map and this was simply a sales pitch, appearing to be a map update. It looked like the update thing I’d seen earlier, so I thought I would have to pay for this one. Made me angry and disappointed, and very weary of anything they say.
I very much dislike software with built-in sales pitches. I don’t mind buying services when I need them, but I do think that I shouldn’t be fooled into buying them.
Bought a TomTom 730T GPS device today. Very cool. Lots of well-considered features, great design, just what I wanted. I’m really looking forward to driving around for a bit tomorrow.
But then, I tried to install the TomTom Home 2 software on my Debian (Sid) Linux box, using wine. Didn’t work. I spent an hour trying to get around the error message (a rather crypic message involving some file from Visual C++) but couldn’t make it work.
Yes, TomTom, I do use a Windows box, too, at work, but I was hoping for you to return the favour (I bought your product, after all, didn’t I?) by supplying me with software for the operating system of my choice. It shouldn’t be that hard to do; after all, you did come around to recompile your software for the Mac.
Aren’t more people using Linux these days than Mac?