The days of burying our noses in a giant and wildly flapping map seem to be over; at least for some of us. The new Tom Tom mobile app for Android devices has now been launched, although it isn’t yet supported on all of the Android phones and tablets.
Let’s start with the bad news then. If you own a Google Nexus 7, an HTC One X or X+, a Samsung Galaxy S3 or a Samsung Galaxy Note then you will still need one of those big maps which always seem to get blown about at precisely the wrong moment, or a traditional SatNav device. This is because the new Tom Tom app only runs on Android devices which have either 800 x 480 or 854 x 480 resolution. They also need to run Android 2.2 or higher.
A Significant Milestone
However, the SatNav company says that it is “committed” to giving support to the higher resolution phones and tablets in the future. The official statement on the matter came from Corinne Vigreux, who is the Managing Director of Tom Tom. She said that they want to bring their content and services to “as many devices and platforms” as they possibly can. She went on to say that this is why the introduction of the App to Android devices was a “significant milestone” for them.
The new app is being offered in the UK and Ireland at a special introductory price of just over £30. The maps are included in the price but are stored offline. This means that if you lose the signal while you are travelling you won’t lose the maps. It also means that you won’t need to pay through the nose for roaming charges while you are using the maps abroad. There are free map updates every three months as standard.
