Tom Tom App for iPhone

As is my want, I recently bought the Tom Tom APP for my iPhone. I used it yesterday for the first time. It worked well on the motorways where down here in deepest darkest Wales all motorway signs are in both English and Welsh. The problems started when I left the motorway and started to use A & B roads. The signs here of course are only in Welsh. The spellings in Welsh are something else and something the English voice giving the directions just couldn’t cope with. His pronunciation bore no resemblance to what the road signs looked like. Mrs Toc, who is a Welsh speaker and a total non believer in Sat Nav had steam coming out of her ears at the mangled attempts of ‘The English Voice’ to read the signs. She is not the worlds best passenger at the best of times. We have been known to fall out as soon as we leave the house and have had many a silent 300 mile journey down to Kent.

Anyway, all that apart I’m now thinking of downloading Homer Simpson’s voice. That would really blow her mind.

25 thoughts on “Tom Tom App for iPhone”

  1. Is there no Welshman available? Tom Jones perhaps, he could even put your directions to music 😉

  2. Soutie,

    The funny thing is, that only about 27% of the population can actually speak Welsh. They can obviously all read and pronounce road signs but that is about their limit. Dear old Tom of course is not a Welsh speaker. I have actually listened to Homer Simpson’s voice. It is so funny, you would be laughing too much to listen to the directions.

  3. Men and their toys eh? I think Homer Simpson will be spot on. Just a thought though, don’t for goodness sake call Mrs Toc, Marge 🙂

  4. I’ve never ever used a satnav device, no need to down here, I was however a passenger (on my last trip to London, where I accept they are an absolute necessity) and my mate switched over the Ozzy Osbourne’s directions, what a laugh 🙂

  5. If you don’t know your way round Carmarthenshire and Swansea by now, God help you!
    Bloody ridiculous machines.

  9. Ok, so I’m weird, but I have a built-in map.

    A glance at a paper map for a new location fixes the skeleton, and having once driven there the details are filled in, never to be forgotten. It’s not good on names, but it’s always correctly orientated geographically (although this is dependent upon the movement of the sun, so changing hemispheres throws it off for a few days) and can give explicit directions of the “third left, second right, 3rd exit at the roundabout” type.

    It’s a whizz at sorting out the quickest route from A to B, although these days if asked how to get from North Brisbane to Queanbeyan it will probably respond with “Down the Bruce to the airport; catch plane; hire cab”.

    It does have its drawbacks – it doesn’t update automatically or warn of new roadwork ahead, but it does have a definitive list of all public toilets in every major Australian city and on every Freeway. A facility which is no longer required since the op, but it’s a hilarious party-piece.

    Who needs external software? 😆

  10. Bearsy, how interesting, I am exactly the same. I always know my heading within a few degrees even if the sun isn’t shining. Never bother with a map in the UK, just go.

  15. LW – UK and Aussie generic term for car GPS with voice, after the best-selling brand. 😕

  17. Rick,

    Maps were part of my trade craft for over twenty years and I’m not talking the AA or RAC type maps. I’m talking about maps that were full of contour lines where in many cases there were no roads at all and if you couldn’t visualize what the terrain looked by reading those contour lines life could become very difficult indeed. Along with these maps, you of course were required to have a full understanding of the compass and protractor. Imagine calling for fire support and your grid reference was inaccurate by one number. It would be a case of hasta la vista, baby to you or your mates. Anyway, enough of the Lamp & Sandbag.

    I was working in London during the height of the IRA bombing campaign. Sat Nav would have been an absolute boon when without warning roads were closed and you were left to you own device to find another way home. Not easy unless of course you were a taxi driver who had done the Knowledge. Trying to read a map whilst driving constitutes a real hazard to other road users and is against the law.

    So, Back to the Tom Tom, it gives me live traffic information, it will see far enough ahead to warn me of serious traffic holdups and reroute me automatically and this facility is updated by the minute.. It has of course has a host of other useful actions but I can’t be bothered to go into those. Well, other than to mention speed camera warnings.

    So, a useful tool and in my opinion, one to be embraced.

    P.S. I bet there are still luddites there who even miss Izal toilet paper. 🙂

  19. I’m with you Toc.

    It’s time to embrace the horror people, maps are sooooo yesterday. 🙂

    Personally I couldn’t find my own arse with both hands and a torch, I have absolutely no inbuilt homing ability.

  22. Oh dear! What a shame! Never mind! (Said in the deep Welsh voice of Sgt Major Williams).

    OZ

  24. I’m with Bearsy – I have the same in built sat nav. But, I do have an odd affinity with maps, often happily sitting down and looking at them for fun.

    Sat-navs – I hate them. There’s a new phenomenon apparently where people try to beat the arrival time clock – causes no end of accidents. Laziness, that’s what they represent to me! (And if you don’t keep them updated at a cost they soon go out of date thus being useless.)

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