6. Finding a Restaurant

Figure 68: Searching for a Point of Interest

In GPS speak, a "Point of Interest", or POI, is a business address saved on the GPS. You can think of the POI database as a yellow pages stored on the GPS. Most automotive GPS devices come pre-loaded with a Points of Interest database, allowing you to find nearby businesses, such as restaurants, gas stations, hotels, and more.

A pre-loaded POI database is a powerful feature that really comes in handy when traveling in new places. Once you've used the Points of Interest lookup a few times, you'll appreciate the convenience of being able to find a hotel, restaurant, gas station, parking lot, shopping center, or just about any other type of business with a few taps on the screen.

Magellan has always been strong in the POI department, and the 4350 is no exception. Like all other Magellan Maestro models, the 4350 ships with around 4.5 million POIs pre-loaded onto the unit.

To search for a "Point of Interest", tap on Points of Interest from the Main Menu, as shown above.

Searching the pre-loaded POI database is a simple affair, requiring a few screen taps to choose a category (i.e. Restaurant), sub-category if appropriate (i.e. Restaurant -> Chinese), and where you want to search.

Figure 69: Trip Options

You can also search for a POI while already en route to a destination. Tapping the Options button from the Map page brings up the Trip Options screen, shown above.

Figure 70: Searching the POI Database

After tapping Points of Interest, Maestro displays the "Select Point of Interest" screen shown above, and asks us to specify how we want to search for POIs. Four options are available:

• Search By Category - Allows you to specify a category (and sub-category when appropriate) to search. For example, Restaurant -> Italian Cuisine
• Search By Name - If you know the name of the business you're looking up, tapping Search By Name allows you to enter all or part of the name.
• AAA TourBook - Search the AAA TourBook for businesses that have been reviewed by AAA
• Freeway Exit POI - Displays POIs at upcoming highway exits (only available when driving on a highway)

In this example I'll be searching for a restaurant, so I'll tap on Search By Category to continue.

Figure 71: Choosing a POI Search Category

Use the scroll bars to view the categories and tap on the category you want to search. In this example I'm looking for nearby restaurants, so I'll scroll down and choose Restaurant to continue.

Figure 72: Choosing a POI Search Subcategory

Some POI categories have sub-categories. For example, if you tap choose Restaurants as the main category, you can then choose a cuisine type as a subcategory, or search all restaurants by choosing "ALL SUBCATEGORIES". If I were searching for nearby Chinese restaurants, for example, I could select "Chinese" as the subcategory on this page.

Figure 73: Restaurant Listings

This page lets you choose a specific restaurant chain, if desired, or display the entire list of nearby restaurants. For example, all nearby Applebe's restaurants are grouped within the "Applebee's" listing. So if I wanted to see only Applebee's restaurants, I could tap that selection. Or you can choose "All Subcategories" to see a list of all nearby restaurants, listed in order of closeness.

Figure 74: POI Search Results

Each restaurant is listed in order of closeness to your current position. The restaurant's name, street address, and distance are displayed for each listing. Tapping the phone icon on the right displays the restaurant's telephone number, which can be dialed if you've paired a bluetooth cell phone to the Maestro 4350.

Figure 75: Search Options

Tapping the Options button on the search results page (shown in figure 64) brings up the Search Options screen, shown above.

It is possible to specify a specific area for the Maestro 4350 to search for Points of Interest. The following options are available:

• Along Route - Searches for POIs along the current planned route (this option only appears if you are currently en route to a destination)
• Near Destination - Searches for POIs near your destination
• Near City - Searches within a particular city (requires entering a city name)
• Near Address - Searches near a specific address (requires entering an address)

The option to search near the destination address is a welcome addition to the 4350's already impressive search options. Previous Maestro models lacked this handy search capability.

Also new to the 4350 is the ability to search for POIs along the planned route. Note that this is different that the Exit POI feature, which displays POIs at upcoming highway exits.

The ability to search for a specific POI (by category or name) along the planned can be very useful. For example, if you want to stop at a McDonald's somewhere along your planned route, the 4350 lets you specify that you're searching for McDonalds restaurants along the route.

Figure 76: Add/Change Destination

If you search for a POI while already en route to a destination, the Maestro 4350 asks if you want to:

• Replace Destination - Deletes the current destination address and replaces it with the new POI
• Insert Via Point - Adds the POI as an additional stop along the way to your final destination
• Add to Trip - Lets you plan a trip that will have more than 2 stops