Obsolescence and design issues...

The other day, I unearthed our old Garmin nüvi dedicated in-car GPS unit from one of the boxes in the garage, and when I plugged it in, the unit reminded me that the map data hadn't been updated since the early Jurassic, so I visited the Garmin web site to see how much it would cost to bring the unit up to date.

I seem to recall this was not a simple process, as the site didn't play well with Chrome and kept insisting I needed to install software to do what I wanted to do, which is always a turn-off for me. Still, I was curious, so I persisted, and eventually found out that the company offers a $79-per-year subscription service offering some number of updates for free, but I had stopped paying attention. Between Google Maps and Waze...

Hmmm.

After watching Waze sort of give up the ghost in places where T-Mobile's signal was non-existent during our recent trip to Pagosa Springs, I cannot recall the Garmin unit ever flaking out in such a manner. Too, if you're using a phone-based navigator, you've got to have your phone connected to something to keep from running out of juice (something I learned when I left the USB cable at home the day Natalie got married, with the result that my phone's battery hit 0% charge for the first time in its "life").

Something to think about.

Cheers...