5. Finding A Restaurant

Figure 36: Main Menu

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 new 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 -- especially when traveling in unfamiliar places. Once you've used the Points of Interest directory 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.

For example, you may want to search for a restaurant near your destination, or find the closest gas station.

The RoadMate 1470 comes pre-loaded with 6 million POIs.

To begin searching for a Point of Interest, tap Go To from the Main Menu.

Figure 37: Choosing A Destination Type

To search for a "Point of Interest", tap Points of Interest from the destination menu, as shown above.

Figure 38: Searching the POI Database

After tapping Points of Interest, the RoadMate 1470 displays the Select POI screen shown above, and offers four different ways to search the POI directory:

• Search By Category - Allows you to specify a category (and sub-category, when appropriate. For example, Restaurant -> Italian Cuisine)
• Search By Name - If you already know the name of the place you're looking for, tapping Search By Name allows you to enter all or part of the name. The RoadMate will then search all POI categories for a business with that name. This is also useful when you're not sure what category a business is classified under
• AAA TourBook - Search the AAA TourBook for businesses that have been reviewed by AAA

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

Figure 39: Select the POI Search Category

POIs are grouped into categories. Some categories also have sub-categories. For example, Restaurants have sub-categories for the various cuisine types.

Use the scroll bars to view the POI categories, and tap on the category within which you want to search.

In this example I'm looking for nearby restaurants, so I'll tap Restaurant to continue.

Figure 40: Select Subcategory

Restaurants can be further limited to a specific cuisine type, if desired. For example, if we wanted to find a Japanese restaurant, we would choose Japanese as the subcategory on this screen. Or, you can choose not to limit the results list to a specific cuisine, and view all restaurant types by selecting All Subcategories.

Figure 41: Select Subcategory

If you choose to specify a cuisine type when searching for a restaurant, the RoadMate also gives you the option of choosing a specific restaurant chain (based on the cuisine type you chose), or view all restaurants of that cuisine type by choosing All Subcategories.

Figure 42: Search Near

Now that we've told the RoadMate that we're looking for a Japanese restaurant, the GPS asks us where we want to search. The following options are available:

• Near Current Position - Searches for POIs near your current location
• Near City - Searches within a particular city (requires entering a city name)
• Near Address - Searches near a specific address (requires entering an address)

Figure 43: Search Near (While En Route To A Destination)

If you search for a POI while already navigating to a destination, two additional options appear on the "Search Near" screen:

• 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

Figure 44: POI Search Results

Each restaurant is listed in order of closeness to your current position. The restaurant's name and distance are displayed for each listing.

Tapping the phone icon on the right displays the restaurant's telephone number (the RoadMate 1470 doesn't have Bluetooth, so you can't use it as a hands-free speakerphone. Still, it's nice to be able to lookup phone numbers for businesses).

Tap on the restaurant you want to navigate to.

Figure 45: Address Confirmation Screen

Begin navigating to the restaurant by tapping the Go button.