Since my other half got interested in the Open Street Map project, he went out and bought both a GPS tacking device and a GPS SatNav device. Both of these are lovely little toys, and the mapping of Stoke-on-Trent is coming along nicely.
However, having borrowed the SatNav the other day, I found that it does something really, really dumb. When you switch it on, it brings up a long message saying “Do not operate this while driving or you’ll crash and die” or some such. Fair enough. Until the battery starts to fade, at which point it automatically switches the voice off (presumably to preserve power), so I no longer get audio directions, and pops up a message box on the screen, so I no longer have a useful little map to glance at. So it instantly leaves me utterly without the function it’s supposed to be for, and the only way to get rid of the message box so I’ve at least got the map to glance at is by leaning across and pressing a button. In other words, unless I’m lucky enough to have somewhere to stop to sort it out very soon, I either hope I’m going the right way, or commit the crime of “operating while driving” and risk a “crash and die” scenario. What’s even more annoying is that the message box has too much text at too small a font size to read easily without taking my attention off the road for longer than I’m comfortable with. What’s wrong with just announcing “battery low” by both voice and a message box that disappears after a couple of seconds?
