6. Searching for Businesses

Figure 36: Search Menu

TeleNav's Shotgun really flexes its muscles in the POI department. Traditional, non-connected GPS devices typically come pre-loaded with a Points of Interest (POI) database that contains anywhere from 1 to 6 million entries, including addresses and phone numbers for restaurants, gas stations, hotels, and much more.

The Shotgun comes pre-loaded with 10 million POIs stored directly on the device. Shotgun can also leverage its Internet-connected search capability, giving you access to virtually limitless business listings.

The ability to search for businesses by name or category can be invaluable when traveling. For example, you might want to look for a nearby gas station to fill up, or find a hotel, restaurant, parking garage, wi-fi hotspot, etc. You might also want to find a specific business by name, such as a McDonalds, or Starbucks.

Figure 37: Search Where?

When searching for businesses, Shotgun asks where you want to search: near your current location, or somewhere else.

If you choose "Near You", results are shown in order of closeness to your current location. If you choose "Somewhere Else", the Shotgun asks you where you want to search, as shown below.

Figure 38: Search Near

Shotgun can search for business listings near saved favorite addresses, recently found locations, near a specific street address, near an intersection, city, or airport.

Figure 39: Searching...

Looking up businesses takes a few seconds.

Figure 40: Search Results

The search results list, shown above, lists results in order of closeness. It's also possible to search within the results list by entering text in the Find box at the top of the screen.

Figure 41: Search Results Details Screen

More detailed information, including complete street address and phone number, is available for each business listing. A recent software update also added a ratings feature that displays ratings for restaurant listings.

7. Traffic

Figure 42: Traffic Alert Received

Real-time traffic data is included as part of the connected service offering from TeleNav. If you have an active subscription, the Shotgun will check traffic conditions every 5 minutes, and alert you if there's a traffic slowdown that will impact the planned route.

You can also view current speed and flow data along your route (shown below).

Figure 43: Traffic Summary

The traffic summary view lets you view view traffic conditions along the planned route.

Figure 44: Getting New Route...

If a traffic event will severely impact the current planned route, Shotgun will calculate a new route that avoids the traffic incident.

The "Getting new route..." pop-up window is so large that it obscures the map, and potentially prevents you from seeing where you should be driving. For example, on several occasions I was navigating complex highway intersections, and the Shotgun suddenly (and incorrectly) thought I was driving on an adjacent surface road, and began to "re-calculate" the route. The "Getting new route..." pop-up window appears, and for the next 15 seconds or so, I couldn't see where I was supposed to drive.

8. My TeleNav

Figure 45: My TeleNav Website

Included with TeleNav's connected service is access to My TeleNav. Once you register the Shotgun's Device Number and PIN with TeleNav, the My TeleNav website lets you manage the Shotgun's address book remotely, and download mileage reports.

Figure 46: My TeleNav Browser Plug-in

TeleNav has also released a “My TeleNav” browser plug-in (available for Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, or Google toolbar) that allows you to highlight an address when you are browsing the Internet and port it to your My TeleNav account.

Once the address is sent to your "My TeleNav" website, you can edit the address's label and/or assign it a category, and then send it wirelessly to the GPS.