Comments on: Garmin Project Bobcat

By: Tim

Tim — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 14:08:13 +0000

What a difference a couple of days makes. See my post about Garmin RoadTrip!

By: Tim

Tim — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 01:50:25 +0000

The software is getting better, but is still in beta. The biggest downside right now as far as I’m concerned is that it is very, very slow when searching, browsing/panning/zooming the map, etc.

By: Jim

Jim — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 01:28:13 +0000

I don’t see any posts after 6/13. Does this mean that the shortcomings have been resolved or folks gave up. I tried Tom Tom and after an hour and a half with their tech support we still couldn’t get it working with OS 10.5 so I was hoping Garmin would work out.

By: Greg lazarchik

Greg lazarchik — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 15:43:51 +0000

After my conversions and running Bobcat I find none of the waypoints and routes came over to the mac from the PC Mapsource files. Is there any way to accomplish that?

By: Tim

Tim — Tue, 27 May 2008 11:56:07 +0000

Bobcat has been quite stable for me, but not being able to search for addresses (even at this point) is just silly.

By: David E Hartzell

David E Hartzell — Tue, 27 May 2008 11:28:13 +0000

I have been using “Bobcat” for the last week and what a disappointment. It not only lacks essential features, but crashes consistently. This is one of the worst, most buggy programs I have used in years. Garmin is not only slow but inept in their Mac efforts. Tom Tom is in my future after years of being a loyal Garmin customer.

By: Karl

Karl — Wed, 14 May 2008 03:25:16 +0000

oh my god!!! c’mon garmin! You guys have got to do better than requiring a pc to convert maps to mac!!!!! Wow, ok… Im going hiking now, without my garmin.

By: Tim

Tim — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 02:29:38 +0000

Hi “Brian”, thanks for stopping by. I suspect it is much easier for you to get the attention of a Garmin engineer and get them to listen to your feature requests because you are a Garmin employee yourself!

I think you will find that more of your competitors are offering Mac software to help manage their devices and plan routes. TomTom has had a Mac version of HOME for a couple of years that gives people the ability to create routes with their keyboard and mouse as well as handle application updates. Of course I’m looking forward to doing that in full screen on Bobcat.

But in the interest of transparency you probably should have disclosed that you are a Garmin employee before touting Bobcat’s features and cricizing competitors. I’m going to append “garmin employee” to your post-name.

Cheers!

By: Brian (Garmin Employee)

Brian (Garmin Employee) — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 01:56:04 +0000

While I completely agree that I wish Garmin had come out with Bobcat earlier, I am very happy that it is here. Bobcat isn’t just a rehash of a PC program. It looks and feels like a real Mac app and personally I would much rather have a true Mac app than a knock off of the PC app that I’m sure they could have forced out quicker.

The first version was pretty basic, but it has had 3 updates in the last 3 months which has filled in much of the major functionality and made it much more stable for me. Personally I find Bobcat to be a big step up from Mapsource. It looks better and is easier to use. Venting here is all fine and good I suppose, but if people want Garmin to listen, they should do what I did and use the Send Feedback feature built into Bocat. An engineer responded with questions about my requested feature.

Or you could use Garmin’s competitors’ Mac software…oh wait there isn’t any.

By: Martin

Martin — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 18:28:10 +0000

Bobcat seems a great start from Garmin, works a treat with my Garmin Visit. The only issue I have is adding waypoints, it crashes when adding a point to a Topo map, this is easy resolved by changing to the Navigator map adding the waypoint then changing back to Topo. Lets hope Garmin keep updating this software!