Everything Else

Think back upon your commute this time last year.

Is it better today than it was back then? According to a new study, two-thirds of you don’t think it is.

Recently, Hartford released it’s 2010 Drivability Survey (conducted by GfK Roper) where it surveyed drivers about the current state of the road, their commute, and how it affects them.

The survey found some very interesting findings including:

• The average American commute is almost 26 minutes (one-way) which equals over 56 hours per year lost in traffic.
• 86% of drivers admit to performing at least one other activity while behind the wheel – including eating, drinking, talking on their cell phones, or text messaging.
• American drivers generally have a positive attitude about driving and believe most other drivers are courteous.
• Most people don’t believe the roads in their area were designed for the current amount of traffic.

Other surprising findings are:

• Only one in 10 American commuters would be willing to commute as long as necessary to accept a new job they found very interesting.
• Oprah Winfrey would be the most popular celebrity carpool companion. Others included President Obama, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Kathy Griffin, and Beyonce Knowles.
• 39% of drivers believe being driven by a chauffeur would make their commute more pleasant.
• Bad roads are surprisingly less popular than heavy traffic: 75% of drivers would prefer to sit in stop-and-go traffic on a well-paved road than having a road full of potholes to themselves.

Want more on the 2010 Hartford Drivability Study? Check it out here.

What jumped out at you about this study?

Photo Credit: Burning Image (Flickr)

It’s a Jungle! out there…. 

Greetings everyone!

Here at TeleNav, we’re excited to tell you about our newest product, Jungle!

Jungle! is a free mobile classifieds application developed to help students post or search for items, services, or housing right from their iPhone. It’s different than many other mobile classifieds apps because Jungle! uses location information to help get you the most relevant information based on distance near you.

Imagine this – you are a student looking for a certain textbook. If you want to avoid high prices at a campus store, you might try classified ads (online or otherwise) and search within a given area or neighborhood. This was all good and well, but some areas can be pretty huge and determining true distance can be difficult. Here at TeleNav, we think this is a problematic process because most of the time actual distance from the item’s location will help you determine your interest. Would you want to drive an hour to get an item? Probably not.

Enter Jungle!

Jungle! overcomes this problem. In addition to being able to search by item and price, it searches using location so you can quickly determine the overall relevance to you.

And if you’re posting an item, you can rest at ease – your privacy is protected. Jungle! will never post your exact location nor your personal information. When somebody finds your post, they will only be able to see your posting’s general area on a map, which at default is set to a half-mile radius (this is a pretty big area). Additionally, Jungle! only displays usernames and profiles – not phone numbers and email addresses. Users contact each other through a direct messaging feature built into the app.

In addition to features, Jungle! users can:

• Post or search for products, housing, and services directly from your phone.
• Post requests for items, housing, or services.
• Include up to four photos in a post using your phone’s internal camera or photos from your internal gallery.
• Message potential buyers or sellers directly within the app.
• Use International Standard Book Numbers (ISBN) to post or search for textbooks.
• Promote your posting by publishing it to your Facebook News Feed.

Right now, Jungle! can be downloaded on the Apple App Store for the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4.0, and iPod Touch.

Have you tried out Jungle!? Let us know your feedback!

Navigating is about getting you where you want to go exactly when you want to go, isn’t it?

Whether it be to the grocery store, a sports event, or to attend an 80′s cover band concert, here at TeleNav, we want to provide you with the best navigation experience on the planet – and to be honest, we think we do.

And while we continue to work to improve our products and features, there are also some very easy steps that users can take to get the most of TeleNav GPS Navigator. Here are our top 4.

Car Mounts

Yes, these handy-dandy little things can make a huge difference in your navigating experience because with one in place, you’ve got a straight & steady eye-shot of your next driving maneuver.

My personal favorite? The mounts made by a company called Arkon – but full disclosure: we’ve partnered with them in the past. With that said, however, I use their mounts every day and it holds up my HTC EVO (which by all accounts, is a pretty solid device).

Power Chargers

Whether you’re using a standalone GPS device or a GPS application designed for your phone, it’s important that you’re aware of power and that’s why I would highly recommend you invest in a car charger (made specifically to fit your device).

Where could you pick one up? In my experience, eBay.com is the place to go for these. There are highly-rated sellers that can send them out to you for less than just a few bucks. But before you go and jump on eBay (especially if you’re a n00b), please research eBay best practices.

Use “Favorites”

Yes, “Favorites” are my favorite. And as lame of a play on words as that is, they truthfully are very helpful.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with what these are, “Favorites” are locations that you are able to save into TeleNav GPS Navigator (& other products we power). This is helpful because with a destination saved as a Favorite, you can quickly start navigating to a destination without first having to manually enter in address information or search for it. Instead, you can just go to your Favorites, find the destination, and hit navigate.

I promise if you set your Favorites up, your navigation experience will be a lot more awesome.

Set Up Your My.TeleNav.com

Finally, last but certainly not least is one of my favorite things in the world – My.TeleNav.com.

Okay, so yes, I’m a bit of a “fanboy” but truth be told, I think this is genuinely very helpful (even if I wasn’t here working at TeleNav).

So what is My.TeleNav.com? Well, let me explain it like this; if you’re like me, you probably discover a lot of places you want/need to go on the internet, whether it be a restaurant you’ve discovered in a search or an event you’ve been invited to via email. Regardless of where these destinations are, all of a sudden you’re left with an address that you want to put into TeleNav GPS Navigator and of course, you don’t want to manually enter in it into your device, do you? I certainly wouldn’t.

Enter My.TeleNav.com.

My.TeleNav.com allows you to send an address from your computer directly to your TeleNav GPS Navigator with an easy copy-and-paste or by installing some plug-ins directly into your browser. It’s actually incredibly simple. As soon as you’ve entered in the information and sent it off, just open up TeleNav GPS Navigator on your device, select “Favorites” and hit sync. As soon as it’s finished loading, you will see your newly entered address and bada-bing, bada-boom – you’re ready to get navigating!

Note: Actual steps may very depending on device, version, or carrier.

Have any tips or tricks to share with users? Let us know in the comments below!

Photo Credit: By-Your-⌘ (Flickr)

Okay, I’m a little bit late…

…and for that, I apologize.

Let’s start from the beginning.

A couple of weeks back, we wanted to try something new on our Facebook page. While we know many of you have questions about things related to our company (product or otherwise), we don’t often have the opportunity to directly answer them. With this in mind, we thought it would be useful if we invited our Facebook fans to ask us questions and we would take those and answer them right here on our blog the following week. Simple, right?

Well, last week past and it didn’t happen. No post went up and the questions weren’t addressed. So what happened? Truth be told, sometimes getting a single answer can be easier said than done and one small question might need to be run past several people or entire groups. With hundreds of employees in our company, you could probably imagine how difficult this might be.

But with that said and with no further delays, today I’m happy to say that we have the questions (and more importantly, the answers) ready to go!

Robin D. asked, “Will your app on the iPhone be able to play through a Bluetooth device instead of just through the speaker?”

Thanks for the question, Robin! This is something we’ve gotten a lot of feedback on, and understandably so. We want to let you know that yes, we’re looking into Bluetooth integration. We will definitely keep you posted!

Evan S. asked, “Will TeleNav come out with lane guidance assistance along with integration into Blackberry’s calendar appointments and contacts in the BlackBerry Storm version in the future? And also, why are hot dogs packed 7 per package and the buns are packaged 8 per package?”

Appreciate the question, Evan! Your Storm should currently have TeleNav integration with your calendar appointments, contacts, and email. If it’s not working, please let me know (kenjio at telenav dot com). I would be more than happy to help! Regarding lane guidance on the BlackBerry Storm, we haven’t announced anything yet about that and if we do, it’ll be right here on our blog.

Regarding your hot dog question, the explanation goes back to the early days of man. Back then, they were actually just known as “hot meat tubes” because dogs had yet to be invented (yes, the animal) and during that time, there were actually 8 of these to 8 buns and life was good. That all changed however, when Darth Vader decided he needed to build a Death Star to please his master, Frodo Baggins, and he made it out of hot dogs. And that’s why the sky is blue… and there are no more dinosaurs… Wait, what was the question?

Photo Credit: BusyBrain (Flickr)

Do you have a question you want to ask us? Let us know in the comments section below or on our Facebook page!

Driving alone…

It can be boring, endless, and possibly one of the most mind numbingly unstimulating things you’d ever have to do and that’s why if we had the choice, most of us would choose to drive with a passenger, right? But unfortunately, while there are tons of benefits to having another person in the car, as it turns out, passengers — whether they’re your kids, your spouse, or a coworker — might also have habits that just might drive you absolutely crazy.

Do any of these bug you?

10. Starting up his/her own navigation system

…when you have your own (TeleNav GPS Navigator = shameless plug).  And besides, you know where you’re going anyway!

9. Holding on for dear life

This may include: tightly grasping the handle above the door at every turn, pressing palms to the dashboard, grabbing handle of car door, and clutching the seat.  Similarly, there are the phantom breakers who press their foot/feet to the floor on imaginary brakes if they think you are going too fast.

8.  Sleeping

It’s a long road trip, you’ve been driving for hours on end, and you would love to take a nap yourself.  Even worse: your snoozing passenger awakens for 2 seconds and groggily mutters, “Can you turn down the radio? [snore]” Seriously???

7. Changing car settings

…without consulting you first.  Includes AC/heat, and switching radio station (to a song you hate).

6. Eating in your car

…without asking permission, especially something very messy/smelly (or something very yummy, and not offering to share). Thanks for the spaghetti stain! :/

5. Wanting a potty break every 15 minutes

(OK, usually kids are the offenders here.)

4. Saying “All clear!”—when it’s not

So your passenger is trying to help you at a blind intersection but let’s be honest – it’s never really “all clear” when they say “all clear.”

3. Expressing road rage (for you)

Making obscene gestures and/or yelling at nearby drivers, while you cringe behind the wheel, hoping that other person is not a psychopath who will try to run you off the road.

2. Backseat driving

This varies from “Sheesh, slow down!” to “Why are you going this way? Highway 280 is faster.” Ugh…. Please let my brain make the decision. That process works for me.

And #1 [drumroll]…

1. Gasping or Screaming Suddenly & Loudly

Maybe she just remembered she forgot her purse at the restaurant you were just at, but you think there’s a car, person, cyclist, or hamster in the road you didn’t see and that you might crash into them in the next half a second… Dear passenger – this stresses me out. SERIOUSLY. Please never do this. EVER. Thank you. Sincerely, Me.

Drive safely, folks!  And remember, love your passengers…. despite all of their annoying habits.

Know of a habit to add to the list?  Leave a comment!

Photo Credit: NutMeg