Re: DeLorme SA2006 Info Posted

Dan Lawyer wrote:

Here are some more details on what is posted on their website, and what isn't. Yes, I have permission to post this, we've been discussing it in the DeLorme forums for a few days now. 

Permission to post?  From who?  Why?

This is from a word doc I did with bullets that I had to get rid of to post here, so hopefully it will look ok when it's posted. 
<snip the cheer leading section>

It doesn't look okay. You neglected to omit or edit out many unnecessary hard returns. That results in many chopped up looking lines or hanging indents. Try editing in Notepad with word wraps turned off, then copy and paste into an email.

You are purportedly not associated with DeLorme but you speak for them on the DeLorme forum and now are acting as a shill for them here. Your post here does not read as an objective discussion or review of an impending release, it reads as thinly veiled advertising.

This is a public noncommercial forum and we all speak for ourselves here. So let me share my feelings about this with you.

I have been of the opinion for some time that the DeLorme user's interface sucks. That interface was the primary reason they lost me as a customer.

You recently told me on the DeLorme forum, in an authoritative manner, much as if you were speaking for DeLorme, that no DeLorme product would ever again have a user's interface that was based on or had anything in common with the Windows Common User Access style of interface.

Okay, that is their decision to make. The consequence is that they have lost me as a customer. I am not alone in my dislike for the DeLorme interface, there are others that do not like it.

As long as you've come here to share information on DeLorme products, maybe you can tell me how much longer they will continue to produce and sell "new" versions of Street Atlas HandHeld (SAHH) in its present, nearly dysfunctional, nearly useless, condition.

I was a little slow on the uptake on SAHH, I bought it twice to figure out that it did not work well at all and was not likely to work well anytime soon. It was that experience that drove out of me whatever respect I had left for DeLorme products. And that respect was left over from my Street Atlas 9 days, it had nothing to do with current products.

On the forum there was some kind of whining, sniveling, explanation of why SAHH was as bad as it was. The explanation more or less said that it was not DeLorme's fault that it takes SAHH hours to compile short routes. As I read it, the explanation was something to the effect that "we can't or don't yet know how to write programs that will run as fast as they should on the newer processors but please keep buying this and maybe someday we will figure it out and it will work better". Sheesh!

And in describing the impending release you say "We've had this on the Handheld apps for years..." Who is "we"? I thought you were not an employee of or associated with DeLorme. Now I'm beginning to question the company's honesty too.

I read your post, it looks to me like DeLorme is just now closing in on putting back most or all of the features that were in Street Atlas 9 and that disappeared when they went from SA9 to the SA 20xx series. And even added a few new ones.

In the meantime, I and other former DeLorme user have moved off to other products for both laptops and my handhelds. It is a dog eat dog market and getting us back as a customers is not going to be easy. And the thinly veiled dishonestly and borderline unethical conduct I see from the company in their products, on the DeLorme Forum, and now here are not going to make it any easier.

You want some input for new features? Try adding a "Classic Interface". Or release Street Atlas 10 with a CUA GUI and new data. The sales may surprise you.

Cheers,

Jack

--
Jack Erbes in Ellsworth, Maine, USA - jackerbes at adelphia dot net
(also receiving email at jacker at midmaine.com)
.

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