TomTom is a popular turn-by-turn navigational app for the iPhone that has recently been updated to support multitasking and iOS 4. The new app released on Tuesday is version 1.4 and TomTom has advised all users to upgrade to this version immediately if they are running iOS 4.
This is the update you have been waiting for if you own an iPhone 3GS, since that is the only older model iPhone that allows seamless navigation while making a phone call. It also works for the iPhone 4 and third-generation iPod touches.
The app will now allow drivers to talk, drive, and get driving directions from the TomTom app all at the same time. Continuous visual driving instructions are available on the iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS. This is a great feature that might keep a lot of people from getting lost while talking on the phone.
Besides support for multitasking the update also includes updated maps, route sharing via e-mail, addition of departure reminders directly to the iOS calendar app, new “Eco Routes” for better fuel efficiency, background navigational instructions, new car symbols, etc.
I test drove the updated version of the app today and kept getting the dialog below every time I was placing a call and in the middle of following a route TomTom was guiding me on.
I’d hoped that like some of the standard prompts about using my location that it would stop asking after I said yes a number of times, but this didn’t seem to be the case. I made a handful of calls and no luck in making this prompt go away.
Later, I looked for a setting for this in the app, but I did not find anything that would help there either. It was pretty annoying if you ask me since I use a Bluetooth headset while driving and the phone wasn’t reachable. Reaching to press the buttons on this prompt is also another driving distraction that none of us need.
Eventually if you are on a call and you’ve ignored the prompt above you get another annoying distracting dialog that turns TomTom off if you ignore it – so it’s back to getting lost while talking on the phone. You can see it below. I got it while waiting over 10 minutes for tech support at another company to answer the phone.
I wasn’t able to reach TomTom for comment about these prompts at press time due to overwhelming calls to their technical support line.
TomTom 1.4 for the U.S. & Canada is available from the App Store for $59.99 and is a free update for existing users. Versions for other regions can also be found via TomTom’s App Store page.
