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Mapopolis clarifies misunderstandings August 09, 2004 [General] | By Edward J. R. UPDATED: second e-amil from Jeremy, with more clarifications, added. Mapopolis is a mapping and navigation software plus maps for USA and Western Europe: 
... and, as you can see above, it supports also Bluetooth GPS receivers. Jeremy Straub - now: CEO of Positioning Solutions (who represents Mapopolis products), formerly: Vice President of Mapopolis - explains in which points we were wrong, in our previous story about Mapopolis products. Here is a verbatim quotation from an e-mail from him (he explicility agreed to publish it - we never publish without permission any e-mails being sent to us): Hi, We appreciate that you took the time to visit and review Mapopolis, and we're sorry that you had difficulties understanding the differences between the various levels of products. Unfortunately, due to NavTeq licensing restrictions, Mapopolis does not sell individual maps at the navigator level, as they would be prohibitively expensive to the consumer. Mapopolis is currently working on a web-site redesign that will hopefully make more clear what products are available and the distinctions between them. We would appreciate it if you could modify your article to reflect the reality of the situation. Your implication that any type of deception was intended is without basis. Please let me know if you still have any questions about Mapopolis products and I will try to provide whatever information that I am able. You may also wish to check out http://www.mapopolis.com/home.jsp where complete pricing and description information is available. Thanks, Jeremy Straub * * * * * Hi, I wanted to clarify one thing that may have been slightly unclear in my previous email. It should read: Mapopolis does not sell individual maps at the navigator level. I assumed that "at the navigator level" was implied in relation to the topic of the article, but a co-worker pointed out that I may have been somewhat unclear. I thought that it might be helpful to expand a little bit on what was in the original email: You are probably aware that Mapopolis was one of the first to offer navigation on PDAs and has thousands of satisfied customers. Mapopolis provides a variety of purchase options such as allowing users to buy individual maps (which are county maps in the US and analogous sub-regions within Western Europe), and map packs (which contain every available map for the covered region and major roads maps which provide low-memory-requirement long-distance routing). Mapopolis makes individual maps and Map Packs available for users both with and without GPS as well as those who may be looking for a lower-cost product to work with their GPS device (Platinum +GPS). Platinum +GPS, which costs $45, allows for static routing, but does not contain the speech and prompting capabilities or adaptive re-routing available in the Navigator version. Unfortunately it is not feasible to sell individual maps with Navigator functionality due to the high additional cost of licensing NavTeq data with these features (NavTeq data, incidentally, is the same map data used in navigation systems from BMW, Mercedes, Honda, etc. whose cost generally runs in the $2000 - $4000 neighborhood). If Mapopolis sold individual county maps with Navigator functionality, the individual maps would likely cost between $50 and $75, compared to only $100 for the MapPack (for the US). Mapopolis has one of the most liberal refund policies in the industry. If someone purchases an individual map and realizes that they did not purchase the right product -- or has any other type of problem, the map can be returned within 30 days from the data of purchase or the amount paid can be applied to the purchase of a Map Pack, etc. In addition, MapPacks, can be returned within 30 days, if less than 5 maps have been downloaded. Thanks for helping to disseminate these clarifications to your readers. - Jeremy * * * * * Conclusions: we apologize for mistunderstandings and we fully appreciate, that companies like Mapopolis are investing money to make software products for Microsoft smartphone, despite the fact that similar software, albeit without support for GPS yet - Pocket Streets - is offered by Microsoft itself: 
These companies have only one possibility to compete with Microsoft's own products like Pocket Streets - to make their products better, faster and with more features. Mapopolis is a very good software, but it still lacks 3D view of the area, so there is still some room for improvement... 
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