Comments on: GPS For Bad Spellers

By: stephen

stephen — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 18:13:30 +0000

The only thing being forgotton here is Route66 software – where for an address you just type in the whole thing e.g. 12 john street – it’s fuzzy search and will bring up all possible results – I find it better than the routine of picking city, house number, street etc.

By: Paul McCosker

Paul McCosker — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 20:40:16 +0000

I’d also like to see GPS devices utilise mor computer programming as suggested by Kevin above. I’m a cabbie and that stuff would be really useful. Words like Riley St and Reilly St can often be problematic. I’d also like to see an option to simply be able to select from like last 20 cities/suburbs I have used e.g. I might be looking for a street in Beresfield ( which is the only B suburb I do) but I’ll have to type in Bere before I get an option… just a B should be enough if I have the device set to most recently used suburbs…. this would also be great and save time….I’m hoping we get smarter GPS’s real soon.

By: Tim

Tim — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 14:09:17 +0000

Kevin – Thanks for stopping by. I agree, with the exception of TomTom I don’t understand why GPS manufacturers make us know the exact spelling of everything. Likewise with not allowing us to use abbreviations for states and provinces. Certainly if I was in Australia and the GPS asked for a state/province it should know what I mean by NSW.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 03:19:13 +0000

Hi,

I’ve just come across this site in my search for my first GPS. However, after reading the “N-E-W-Y-BACKSPACE-SPACE-Y” to bring up New York State, this article on bad spelling, & another article on people’s expectations of GPSs changing in the space of just one drive, from amazement to “it doesn’t even have last month’s roadworks”, I have this to add.

I’m a computer programmer by trade. Therefore, it amazes me that there wouldn’t be a greater flexibility when it comes to dealing with spelling errors by the majority of these GPS devices. (I’m also Australian, and so find USA spellings to be rather unusual at any time, let alone in a GPS device.)

A very simple, generally available system has been available in computer programmes for many years, called “soundex”. That would have allowed Allerton to be found if you typed in any of the following:

Alarton, Allarton, Alarten, Alartan, Alartin, Elarton, Elarten, Elartin, Ellerton, Ellartan, etc, etc,

In fact, it would have matched successfully for any combinations that started with Al-, All-, El-, Ell-,
had a middle syllable of: -ar-, -er-, -arr-, -err-, -yr-, -aer-, etc,
and final syllable of: -tan, -ten, -tin, -ton, -tun, -tyn, -tone, -tonn, -taun, -toun, -town, etc.

All of those combinations of spellings could and would bring up the correct street if the computer code included a simple call to the “soundex()” function.

Surely, I can’t be the only person who has ever thought of this?

Good website, reviews, & public comments, by the way. Very informative.

By: Tim

Tim — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 07:38:50 +0000

Len, that is something I don’t recall trying before. I just checked on a number of different devices and didn’t see any that would do it.

By: Len

Len — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 04:31:11 +0000

I have Acura with build in Navigation and I can enter the phone number of the business and it will find it and navigate to it, Is there any aftermarket unit that will let me do the same?
Thank you so much!

By: Tim

Tim — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 20:45:17 +0000

Good point, Sam. I’ve come across that as well when looking for place names like “Pat’s Pizza” or “Bill’s Pizza”. Other devices can deal okay with or without the space (as in your tacobell example) but many choke on dashes and apostrophes.

By: sam

sam — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 02:45:09 +0000

one thing that you didn’t try which i have tried is dealing with special characters. i’ve played around with the various models and garmin seems to be the only unit that will find pios in whic you leave out a specail character or put it in the wrong place. i.e. “wal-mart” vs. “walmart” or “tacobell” vs “taco bell”. Other units require you to spell everything exactly.

just my 2 cents

By: Tim

Tim — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 13:25:42 +0000

For NY you need to spell out “N E W – Y” in order for it to get New York.

By: John

John — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 13:15:45 +0000

I thought you said in another report that one had to spell out the whole state “new york” or was that for just the Nuvi350? Sorry if I misread. It is good news that I would only need to spell Mas each time.