Oops. Telenav could not generate route. Please try again

When we arrived home from New York city, I attempted to pull out my Blackberry 8800 in order to use the TeleNAV GPS Navigation unit to get home. Not that I need to know how to get to my house, rather I like seeing how much distance we remaining. I went to my favorites, selected my home and after a few seconds received the message:

Telenav could not generate route. Please try again

I did not quite understand the error message or what could be causing the problem, so I tried it again.

Telenav could not generate route. Please try again

I figured the problem was similar to what I frequently experience with the Blackberry after flights – where the GPS will not find any satellites once I get off a plane. So, I rebooted the Blackberry 8800 assuming that would fix the issue. Going back to my route, I received the message again.

Telenav could not generate route. Please try again

At this point I figured that TeleNAV must be down and figured they were experiencing some sort of outage where I could not contact the server to calculate the directions.

Then today, on my way to the LAX airport, the same thing happened. However, with a slightly different behavior. The TeleNAV GPS software was giving either the error

Telenav could not generate route. Please try again

or it was providing really interesting routing instructions taking me only on side streets.

I did not get it. In fact, I was about to call TeleNAV’s support number to see what was going on.

Then I remembered that while we were in New York, I flipped the navigational preference from “Fastest Route” to “Pedestrian” since we were doing a lot of walking around the city. (Which the GPS was very handy for, if I may say so.)

I flipped the preference setting back to “Fastest Route” and the TeleNAV software was back in order. If you ever start encountering the above error message on your TeleNAV GPS – make sure to check your preferences and routing before freaking out about the software not working. I wish I would have thought of that sooner!

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People, Listen. GPS on Blackberry is FREE.

Has the Blackberry 8800 series (8830 on Verizon) become more widely used and more mainstream in the last couple of weeks? The reason I ask is that I have heard the same exact conversation in airports and other locations the last two weeks repeated at least three different times. This was repeated again today on the bus to the car rental area at the San Jose Airport.

Person asking about Blackberry 8800: “Hey, is that the new Blackberry 8800 you have there?”

Person with the Blackberry 8800: “Yeah, it’s a great device – everything is built right in.”

Person asking about Blackberry 8800: “I heard it also has a GPS feature in it, how does that work?”

Person with the Blackberry 8800: “Yes it has the GPS feature, however I have not used it.”

Person asking about the Blackberry 8800: “Really, why not? I would use that all the time.”

Person with the Blackberry 8800: “Me too, however it costs $9.95 a month to use it.”

Person asking about the Blackberry 8800: “Wow. That’s a bummer.”

Conversation ends. Houston, we have a problem – more specifically, RIM Blackberry has a marketing problem. Let me clear this up.....

People, please listen to me. You really do not have to do anything to get the GPS (Global Positioning System) working on that Blackberry 8800 or 8830 that you are carrying on your hip. You do not have to register for anything. You do not have to activate anything. You do not need pay one dime to get that little GPS device working. You can go to Options --> Advanced Options --> GPS, you can pull up your current location really quickly.

Now yes, you might want to install Google Maps (install guide here), as it can show you where you are at and even provide directions to where you are going. And if you really want turn-by-turn directions then the value that TeleNAV (install guide here) provides for $9.95 is a really good one. A similar device from Garmin, Tom-Tom or Pharos will set you back $400 or more – about 3+ years worth of TeleNAV service.

Hey RIM, you should consider promoting this better – get people to use the basic Google Maps GPS (like me) and then end up signing up for TeleNAV service indefinitely (like me).

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Blackberry 8800 – GPS Works in Mexico. Kind Of.

I made two recent postings regarding some of the problems I had experienced with getting the Blackberry 8800’s GPS to work internationally. First it was India, where I could not get a signal for the life of me. Then in Frankfurt, Germany – it was the exact same problem, signal too weak for to pinpoint my location.

Based on some of the comments from the posts, others were having more success with their attempts to use the GPS functionality in their Blackberry 8800. Reports from several countries across Europe included successful connections and uses with their GPS. So, with that in mind – I was determined to give it another try on my visit to Cancun, Mexico last week.

First the good news, I was able to get a signal on a couple of occasions along the Yucatan peninsula. While taking a little bit longer than it does here, I was able to get a signal from the GPS satellites and call it my location within 4 meters on Google Maps. The only problem that even in a high-tourist area like Cancun, Mexico – Google Mobile Maps only supports satellite imagery, no maps or mapping options are available. A little frustrating to say the least.

And in terms of the performance of the GPS on the Blackberry 8800, it continues to perform rather poorly for me. In between uses, if I use any other applications – I have to use the ALT+CAP+DEL tool to reset the Blackberry in order to get the GPS to pick up.

Anyone else have similar problems?

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Blackberry 8800 – Will my GPS Work Internationally? Not in Germany Either!

Yesterday I mentioned the problems I had with getting my GPS to work in India with Google Maps.

Well, now it appears that the problem is more world-wide with the Blackberry 8800 and that the GPS functionality will only work in the United States.

Why am I suggesting this? Well, during my lay-over in Frankfurt on Sunday -- I decided to test out the GPS (Gobal Positioning System) function on my Blackberry 8800 while connected to the German networks. While wandering around the International terminals at the Frankfurt airport, I tried several different times to locate a GPS signal.

However, each time I attempted to connect -- I received the same old message -- Signal to weak to pinpoint location. Assumption is now that the GPS functionality only works in the United States which is a complete bummer.

I'm going to give it a final try in Cancun & Cozumel, Mexico next week. Let's hope it works.

Have you had the GPS functionality work for you outside of the United States?

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Blackberry 8800 – Will my GPS Work Internationally? Not in India.

Well, at least do not count on it.

Without first checking the United States military and policy on the use of the Global Positioning System (GPS), my assumption was that the GPS system in my RIM Blackberry 8800 would work both in India and Germany. Since Google Maps had pretty good coverage, I was looking forward to the GPS assistance. It seemed reasonable that since it uses satellite coverage to locate the signals that they could still be located in India.

In fact, BlackberryCool posted just a few days earlier that Air-Tel, which is the cell phone provider in the Bangalore area (Hutch is another popular wireless carrier in India) was announcing their own GPS Navigation software for the Blackberry 8800 series of phones. GPS must work there, even on the US phones, correct?

However, while I was in India I could not get any GPS signal. I knew that my TeleNav GPS Navigator probably would not work since I configured it for the USA, but I assumed I would get some signal. Nope, nothing, zilch. By going to Options --> Advanced Options --> GPS I could not get latitude or longitude information or locate any satellites. Through Google Maps I tried as well, but the error message that kept coming back – “Signal to weak to determine location”.

This was not just in Bangalore, but also occurred in New Delhi and Agra. Bummer, on a couple of occasions it would have helped!

Has anyone else tried the GPS internationally? Did I miss a setting change? Let me know with a comment.

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Blackberry - Install TeleNav GPS Navigation Guide

I had previously posted about Google making the Google Mobile Maps (GMM) available with GPS functionality for the Blackberry 8800. At the same time, TeleNav provides a full Navigation via GPS program with turn by turn directions for the Blackberry 8800. In order make an appropriate evaluation of the TeleNAV GPS Navigator and the Google Mobile Maps (GMM), I installed the TeleNAV program.

The first 30 days are free when you sign up online. It is a little confusing as when you go through the TeleNAV it does not show the first 30-days free until after you check out. However, rest assured that you will not be charged for that first month.

Here is the installation process for the TeleNAV GPS Navigator on your Blackberry 8800:

1. Click on the blue TeleNAV GPS Navigator icon on your Blackberry with the trackball.


2. Choose the language you want to install as, scroll to the bottom and click to go to "Agree".


3. Choose the 'Download' link from the page "Voice GPS Directions on your Blackberry 8800."


4. Select the 'Download' to start the download of TeleNav North America GPS Navigator for Blackberry 8800 version 4.7.0.18, ~900k in size.


5. The download will commence, and will take approximately 2 minutes to complete.


6. Once the installation completes, click no the "Run" to start the GPS navigation program.


7. Choose your language / localization information.


8. Agree to the terms of use by clicking with the trackball.


9. Enter your Phone number and password for your TeleNav GPS account.


10. The final settings and voice information will be downloaded from the server.

Congratulations, you have completed the installation of the TeleNav GPS Navigator for the Blackberry 8800 and you can now get voice directions to your destination of choice!

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