Google Maps has improved its directions feature dramatically by adding “Click and Drag”: after laying out a route, click and drag any point to have Google Maps recalculate the route with updated distance and time. It works great when you don’t like the suggested route, want to take a detour or need to avoid traffic jams and the like. This video walks you through the new features.
It promoted me to have another attempt at configuring my EMTAC GPS receiver with Google Maps for mobile. Previously the mobile version hasn’t been able to locate my GPS receiver so with a bit more searching i found the solution.
The trick was to edit the registry on my Dopod 838 Pro, as described in the blog post above and delete the “Hide” key located under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ControlPanel\GPS Settings. A soft reset was required before the GPS icon would show up under Start/Settings/System/GPS. By following the instructions for Pocket PC and configuring the intermediate driver Google Maps successfully picked up my GPS and started working.
This post from Google Groups provides more details on the setup process.
I have yet to test this in the car and see how it compares to CoPilot Live or whether there will be any conflicts with the Bluetooth port. I remember the guy at OW advising not to create a separate Bluetooth connection (as I have done above) but instead configure it through CoPilot Live so you can keep the port free for a Bluetooth headset. However it sounds like setting up the intermediate driver remedies this, so we shall see.
Of course using Google Maps on the move is only good if you have a cheap mobile data plan or Wifi access.
