Sorry Microsoft but you lose this battle (in the same way that Google beat UPS in David Platt’s classics Sweden story).
Using your mobile to find local information and directions is really useful; I have both Live Search and Google maps installed on my TyTn II. Live Search has recently added the ability to find your location without a GPS – using triangulation or your IP address I assume. Google maps has had this for a while. So imagine this situation: I live in Kent, UK, both apps find me fairly accurately without using the GPS, which is great. The TyTn II does have a GPS but it is never as quick to get the first location, so having both options is nice.
So I wanted to find out about restaurants in Chislehurst which is also in Kent, UK, but some distance away … In Live Search what I assume I need to do is click the Change Location link and enter Chislehurst for the search, then enter restaurant for the <Business or Category>. so I know that I have at least a few steps already to get the information I want (change location, search, confirm location, enter “restaurant”, search) Here’s what happens when I click change location:
What? I am changing location, why is it searching “near Snodland”? I try something more obvious:
Hmm – this cannot be right. Live Search is obviously not letting me change location – a bug maybe, but how could anyone have missed this before it was released? What’s more even if I find the location I want I still have to search again to find restaurants there. Why can’t I just search for restaurants in Chislehurst in one step?
Contrast this to Google Maps:
In one simple search I have exactly what I want. Zizzi’s is the restaurant I am looking for. What’s more I can get a wealth of further information about the restaurant if I want:
I thought that perhaps I was just using Live Search incorrectly, so I had another go:
Err no. So now it is looking for “restaurants in chislehurst near snodland” and comes up with restaurants in Bromley???? I even tried going into settings and turning off the Locate Me feature altogether but this made no difference.
This is sorry result for Windows Mobile – let’s hope that Microsoft have these bugs and UI workflow sorted for Windows Mobile 6.5 and 7!
Ian
Technorati Tags:
Windows Mobile,
Maps
posted @ Wednesday, January 28, 2009 9:24 AM