NEW Mapopolis Smartphone Beta

[Guest Jasonkruys]

The newest version of the Mapopolis Smartphone Beta can be downloaded here:

http://kudzumonthly.com/mapopolis/PPC/Smar...ne_2002.ARM.CAB

Version 4.50.28 09 December 2004

* 4.50 adds localization support for UK English, Dutch, Danish, German, French, Spanish, and Italian. Male and female voice choices are available for most languages.

* Adds ability to hide the Smartphone title bar.

* Implements "Detour Now" function assignable to a button. If you make a mistake entering the distance to detour around, select it again and make your correction. It will still detour to the original destination.

* Updates viewer for NE maps and better polygon rendering of bodies of water.

* pSpeak is now called "Text to Speech" within the program and is optional for the English language only.

* Existing voice files like Crystal, Mike, and Simone04 are not 100% compatible anymore. Please ask the kind authors of these voices to update their files.

This beta is focusing on LOCALIZATION - basically to get it to "speaka your language." Future releases will concentrate on fine-tuning for the specific needs of each language.

There are still a number of enhancements that are on the todo list.

[Guest chucky.egg]

Cool, that'll keep me busy at work tomorrow!

[Guest dan828]

Hey, this runs fine on my MPX220, but I can't seem to get my bluetooth GPS device to do anything usefull other than form a partnership with the phone. Any suggestions on how to get connected and receiving data?

[Guest Dr_StrangeTrick]

Not too sure about the MPX220 (never seen one in the flesh) but I expect you will have the same basic menu structure etc.

This is what I find works every time whenever an application refuses to belive that you have a GPS attached and working.

Press Start goto Settings then goto Bluetooth, press Menu and go to Bonded Devices. In here remove any previous GPS's. When these have been removed (if any) set the Bluetooth to Discoverable and press Done twice and Home to take you back.

Switch your GPS on then go to Start then Configurations and then open BT SerialPortSetup. Tick both boxes and press Done, it will ask you to start bonding with your devices and it will take you straight to the Bluetooth screen.

Press Menu, Bonded Devices then press Menu and New. Wait for the phone to recognise the gps, enter the pin for the gps then press Done, Done and Done.

That should enable the device, open Mapopolis press Menu, Settings, GPS Options change port to COM7, Baud Rate to 4800 and tick Disable Auto Power Off.

While you're in there you may as well tick Auto-Scroll, Auto-Rotate, Auto-Zoom, clear Lock to Road, tick Center View Forward and press Done (these are not needed for the gps to work but these are best settings for the software)

Then press Menu, GPS, Start and if all goes to plan after a few seconds your phone should 'Doink' and you should see your gps info on the screen.

Hope this helps.

[Guest dan828]

Thanks for the advice, but my MPx220 doesn't seem to have a "configurations" in the start menu. As a matter of fact, I have been entirely unable to find anywhere that I can set the bluetooth com ports. I've done it with my iPaq 2215 without much problem, but this thing is getting to be a bit annoying. What program is the "configurations" link supposed to link to? (name, location)

Thanks

Edit: Just saw this:

http://www.modaco.com/viewtopic.php?t=118333

which is sounding like I may be just SOL when it comes to this. Grrrr.

[Guest Dr_StrangeTrick]

Hi Dan, on the SPV phones Configurations is a folder off the main Start Menu and in there we have BT SerialPortSetup which is alongside BT Activesync, BT Settings.

Checking the properties for the shortcut on my phone it points to WindowsBTSerialPortSetup.exe don't know if you can go directly to your Windows folder and run the exe directly, thats if you have it of course :?

Let me know how it goes.

[Guest Dr_StrangeTrick]

Hey Dan I just remembered something and I hope it does not apply to you otherwise you will be stuck.

Read this

Good luck mate.

[Guest Lojt]

How do you hide the titlebar in this version?

[Guest dynamo]

How do you hide the titlebar in this version?

You can't :) that's only on the PPC version :evil:

[Guest Jasonkruys]

You can't :) that's only on the PPC version :evil:

It does suggest you can, specifically stating smartphone:

"* Adds ability to hide the Smartphone title bar"

However, I have not found it. Only thing I can suggest is that the CAB download is version 4.50.26 and the EXE installer is 4.50.28 as suggested above, but it won't work for me

[Guest Dr_StrangeTrick]

I think its a bug, the last few beta's have had the same problem :( and they even lost the female text-to-speech voice :cry:

I know this version has 'real' sounds but this female 'robot' sounded really really nice and being the robot voice you did not loose things like road names etc.

But I think she will come back :)

[Guest dan828]

Hey Dan I just remembered something and I hope it does not apply to you otherwise you will be stuck.  

 

Read this  

 

Good luck mate.

Yeah, it looks like that is probably the problem. I do not know what they were smoking when they decided to not put the BT serial profile in the US version-- it just seems idiotic to me. I mean, why in the world would you cripple your nice little gadget that people are shelling out $$$ for. Guess I'm stuck using my iPaq for navigation. Oh well, I like TomTom better than Mapopolis anyways.

[Guest Dr_StrangeTrick]

Only other option I can think of is to flash your phone with a not US rom, but this may invalidate your warranty as I expect the phone is new.

If you upgrade from Orange in the UK you can return the phone in 14 days if you don't like it, can you return yours :?: otherwise its complain to where you got the phone from or sell it on through EBay.

[Guest Lojt]

Not too sure about the MPX220 (never seen one in the flesh) but I expect you will have the same basic menu structure etc.

This is what I find works every time whenever an application refuses to belive that you have a GPS attached and working.

Press Start goto Settings then goto Bluetooth, press Menu and go to Bonded Devices. In here remove any previous GPS's. When these have been removed (if any) set the Bluetooth to Discoverable and press Done twice and Home to take you back.

Switch your GPS on then go to Start then Configurations and then open BT SerialPortSetup. Tick both boxes and press Done, it will ask you to start bonding with your devices and it will take you straight to the Bluetooth screen.

Press Menu, Bonded Devices then press Menu and New. Wait for the phone to recognise the gps, enter the pin for the gps then press Done, Done and Done.

That should enable the device, open Mapopolis press Menu, Settings, GPS Options change port to COM7, Baud Rate to 4800 and tick Disable Auto Power Off.

While you're in there you may as well tick Auto-Scroll, Auto-Rotate, Auto-Zoom, clear Lock to Road, tick Center View Forward and press Done (these are not needed for the gps to work but these are best settings for the software)

Then press Menu, GPS, Start and if all goes to plan after a few seconds your phone should 'Doink' and you should see your gps info on the screen.

Hope this helps.

The problem im having at the moment is that my phone wont accept my GPS bluetooth password... I have no idea why, i do the exact same things as you, but when i enter the password it says: Error connecting or wrong password...

And it usually works, just one day the partnership was gone and i couldn't get it back. :x

[Guest Dr_StrangeTrick]

Do you know anyone else with another BT phone or a BT adapter on their PC so that you can test the GPS with another machine/phone.

If the same thing happens then something has gone wrong with your GPS.

If it does work on a different machine/phone then I am lost.

Keep us posted.

[Guest Lojt]

I tried on my PC with the password from the manual and it worked fine... Tried playing around with it some more on my phone, and i finally got it to work, just by using no password(??) :roll:

[Guest Dr_StrangeTrick]

Good news :)

Another thing I have noticed with this new version the Auto-Start GPS now works :( :( :( and when you do reach your destination it automatically clears the route for you and just shows you where you are instead of repeating "look for destination..."

[Guest dan828]

Only other option I can think of is to flash your phone with a not US rom, but this may invalidate your warranty as I expect the phone is new.

If you upgrade from Orange in the UK you can return the phone in 14 days if you don't like it, can you return yours :?: otherwise its complain to where you got the phone from or sell it on through EBay.

I'm with Cingular and they have a 30 day return policy, but all in all I can live without GPS on my smartphone (I think it's great besides the lack of the bluetooth serial port profile-- design, features and speed are fantastic), and I have to do something with my old iPaq anyways....

[Guest Dr_StrangeTrick]

I'm with Cingular and they have a 30 day return policy

Not wanting to labour the subject but is it not possible to return the phone to Cingular and ask if it can be replaced with another MPX220 that does have the serial profile :?:

I know you said you are happy at the moment but it means carring your MPX around and your iPaq around as well, not to mention other software in the future which may require BT Serial support.

All the best anyway.

[Guest dan828]

Not wanting to labour the subject but is it not possible to return the phone to Cingular and ask if it can be replaced with another MPX220 that does have the serial profile :?:

I know you said you are happy at the moment but it means carring your MPX around and your iPaq around as well, not to mention other software in the future which may require BT Serial support.

All the best anyway.

Actually, I found a hack over on howardforums that gets around the problem. Apparently everything is intact, you just have to do some slight regedits and it works. Haven't had a chance to try it yet, but I'll let everyone know.

KEYS:

KEY_CURRENT_USER/ControlPanel/Bluetooth and change the two keys to '1'

HKLMSoftwareMicrosoftBluetoothSerialPorts should be set to com6 (mine was already)

[Guest Dr_StrangeTrick]

Well done that man, cant wait to see if it works.

[Guest dan828]

:) Quick update. Tried it this morning on the way to work, and it worked like a champ. I guess all that Cingular did was remove the program that allows you to change the BT port configuration. :roll:

[Guest Blakey]

So is this version of Mapopolis worth upgrading to? And if I choose to, should I uninstall the old version first?

Cheers

Blakey

[Guest Dr_StrangeTrick]

Hi Blakey, the current version on their site is now 4.50.32 and I would download this version instead.

You dont need to uninstall the old version as the install does that for you, but your old favourites are no longer compatible and you will need to redo them.

[Guest Blakey]

I can only see version 4.50.28 on their web site - where did you get 4.50.32 from ?

Cheers!