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increment p makes MapFan which is definitely detailed and has subway exit numbers. There's even an iphone app: http://itunes.apple.com/jp/app/mapfan-for-iphone/id354667360?mt=8
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Sep 21, 2012 06:47
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zmcnulty posted:increment p makes MapFan which is definitely detailed and has subway exit numbers. There's even an iphone app: http://itunes.apple.com/jp/app/mapfan-for-iphone/id354667360?mt=8 With that kind of data they could have launched a much better product. I hope zombie jobs eats the brains of the lead maps developer.
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Sep 21, 2012 07:09
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My personal research has failed me. Basically I have a HTC desire HD with softbank right now and want to upgrade to samsung s3 or HOX, still with softbank. Googling this process was a blur of white and black sim, cutting sim cards, etc. Is this going to be as difficult as google seems to suggest?
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Sep 21, 2012 12:51
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Zo posted:Is this going to be as difficult as google seems to suggest? If Softbank has S3's though (too lazy to google), then they should just give you a new SIM card when you upgrade.
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Sep 21, 2012 18:19
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Between this and that other thing, I'm starting to think Softbank has at least a few thugs in senior management: http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20120925-00000282-yom-soci I mean c'mon, you don't ignore a 公安委員会
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Sep 25, 2012 02:41
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Does anyone have a Softbank 101SH or 007SH? http://mb.softbank.jp/mb/smartphone/product/101sh/ http://mb.softbank.jp/mb/smartphone/product/007sh/ I like the idea of a Smartphone with a keypad. And I need my phone to be turquoise, always and forever. PS. What are your experiences using Smartphones abroad? Are the roaming charges crazy and/or can I use it on a wireless internet hookup?
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Sep 28, 2012 07:19
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I have an Aquos on au very similar to the 101SH there. I really don't like typing on a touch screen, and still don't, and while I thought I would like and enjoy the keypad, in reality I rarely use it, something about the heft of the slide phones makes it feel kind of awkward. That 007SH model looks like it might mitigate that, however. I don't necessarily regret my purchase, but I will definitely be switching to a new phone when possible. I'm actually curious as to whether anyone else uses one like this, as in my immediate circle it's only me in a sea of iphones.
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Sep 28, 2012 08:37
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Hah, I like how the main page of the Japanese App Store has a banner for map apps, that's a pretty damning admission of how bad the new maps are. Anyone have any recommendations? I've heard that Mapfan is the best of them all but it requires 4GB of space since it's all offline maps, if I get that then I won't have much free space left.
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Sep 30, 2012 00:09
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peanut posted:
It varies by carrier and even by maker (I once roamed in Canada - which tends to have extortionate roaming data fees - on a BlackBerry, and the data used by the phone to communicate with the BB server was not charged, though any downloads of email, etc., were costly). In general, I try to stick with wi-fi connections (hotspots, etc.) when outside of the service area, since that generally is free. Combine with an app like Skype and you can even use voice communications for free or very inexpensively. If you absolutely must roam and need full functionality, check into deals your Japanese carrier offers; still amazingly pricey, but still somewhat discounted.
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Sep 30, 2012 00:56
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Original_Z posted:Hah, I like how the main page of the Japanese App Store has a banner for map apps, that's a pretty damning admission of how bad the new maps are. Anyone have any recommendations? I've heard that Mapfan is the best of them all but it requires 4GB of space since it's all offline maps, if I get that then I won't have much free space left. The US App Store also has a map section now. Nokia's maps (maps.nokia.com) appear to be just as bad as Apple's in Japan, Google mobile (maps.google.com) has bad UX but gets the job done, and in my personal case Bing won't load on iOS6. Other people probably have a better solution, but here's what I'm doing: map out a route on a PC using Google Maps, use Navitime to get the train route / alternatives down, and then plug the Japanese-style address into Apple Maps for the last mile since that part of the app actually works.
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Sep 30, 2012 09:14
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I broke down and just downloaded Mapfan. Seems flawless, an advantage of having the maps saved is that they load super-fast. There are also some cool features like famous spots and restaurants that have been on TV, so if you're in a new area you can have some places to check out. The only thing I can't figure out is how to search for something within an area. The local search gives you categories (restaurants, post offices, parks, etc.) and you can't actually type out the name of a place or search for something that isn't in the set list. The option to actually type something out seems to be for the whole country, so if you search for Starbucks you'll get a list of every single one in the country, from Hokkaido to Okinawa, making it more or less useless unless you're searching for a very specific store with an uncommon name. I almost can't believe that this is the only way you can do things, the app is more or less perfect otherwise and I can't imagine them not implementing such a basic feature, but if it exists then it's not very obvious at all. Anyone else use the app who can help? The Apple maps are completely useless where I live. Most of the major shopping buildings aren't listed, or are listed incorrectly (one is shown as a bank, probably because of the ATMs). The major river near where I live is landmarked in the middle of a residential district, and the things that are listed are questionable (why are there so many Parking Meters?). Places of actual interest (like the nearby Round One) don't show up. Most things can only be searched in either English or Japanese, and the maps are completely mixed up so you might have to end up searching in both languages each time. What a joke.
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Sep 30, 2012 11:52
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If you add the area you are in it will usually give better results (ex. Starbucks Shibuya). People reading this should also be aware that while Mapfan is great for turn by turn, it doesn't do public transit at all.
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Sep 30, 2012 15:30
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I was trying to navigate through the city this weekend and I finally realized all the hatred for the new maps app. Try inserting my search terms (which worked on GMaps on the computer) and I get nothing in the Apple app; go to maps.google.com on the phone (iPhone 4) and it finds it there but on 3G in Tenjin with that processor it takes a while. It does find the location, but then doesn't retain the information if you switch apps or lock your phone. Hrm. I think that accounted for a good 10 percent of my phone battery alone. And I downloaded Mapion, the recommended Japanese app, and I have only played with it a little but it looks super Japanese so we'll see how that goes (my language ability is good but sometimes I just want to use stuff in the native tongue, ya know?) The (Apple) Maps app is such a joke it wouldn't even find "Apple store Tenjin" in ENGLISH. Granted they had an icon on the map but STILL. Also echoing the "use wifi when traveling" sentiment. Also that new Android/iPhone app LINE should come in handy for traveling, it lets you chat and make calls to contacts over data (and I think internationally too for free...? haven't tried that yet, just the messaging). iMessage, Facetime, and of course Skype are good for this too. I spent three weeks traveling all over Asia a couple years ago and my phone lived on airplane mode to avoid coming home to an enormous AT&T bill.
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Sep 30, 2012 15:38
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Anybody have any hard information about this? It'd make my life way easier if I could just up my iPhone (4) plan and use tethering on that but they don't seem to have pushed any update as far as I can tell. Please don't tell me it's only going to be available on iPhone 5s. (It is, isn't it?) I enjoyed my time with b-mobile tremendously but DoCoMo throttling the hell out of FOMA connections when everyone stops working at noon to mess with their phones and apparently continues not working until well past 5pm makes my current setup kind of untenable. Sheep fucked around with this message at 23:24 on Sep 30, 2012 |
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Sep 30, 2012 23:22
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My understanding is that Japanese carriers only support tethering on LTE. Since iPhone 4S and below don't support LTE, you won't get any tethering unless you are willing to jailbreak, circumvent your carrier's restrictions, and probably violate your contract terms. That said, at least in the US, that stance raised some legal questions since apparently the FCC mandates licensees (e.g. the carriers) not limit applications/devices accessing the 700MHz spectrum. So Verizon had to pay a settlement and agree to not block third-party tethering apps anymore. However the legal argument was also driven by hard data caps: the logic being that since you're paying for 20GB/month of data from that carrier, shouldn't you be able to use that 20GB on whatever devices you want? In Japan anyway, hard data caps don't exist yet. Even the official tethering plans are still unlimited... only throttled past 7GB. So personally I don't think things will be changing any time soon.
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Oct 1, 2012 01:59
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I'm out of here in eight months so I'm not about to get into another autorenewing two year contract or whatever Softbank wants. B-mobile has a new generation of 4G portable hotspots that look enticing and right up my alley (device + 100 days/10gigabytes for 3.2man) but I'm really worried that they're also going to be subjected to the same throttling/connection issues caused by Docomo that my current setup has to deal with. Would be nice if some company offered a decent contractless mobile hotspot option for a reasonable price.
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Oct 1, 2012 02:44
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Does anyone have any idea about when the Galaxy Note II will be coming to Docomo?
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Oct 1, 2012 02:45
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harperdc posted:And I downloaded Mapion, the recommended Japanese app, and I have only played with it a little but it looks super Japanese so we'll see how that goes (my language ability is good but sometimes I just want to use stuff in the native tongue, ya know?) I found Mapion to be too inconsistent, sometimes searches would yield tons of results, but when I go back and search again for the same thing it'll show nothing. That was the main reason I decided to go to Mapfan, but the lack of precise local searching didn't really help my case at all. Goddamn, Mapfan would be perfect if it just let you search for whatever you want in an area, typing the area name afterwards did help significantly but it's still a questionable substitute. It is also odd how Mapfan doesn't do public transit when the route directions have a section for fares. Ah well, combine that with something like Ekispert and you can make do. Google Map really was so perfect at combining everything and helping you find stuff. I've found the Google Map shortcut thing to be too clunky to use in most situations, and if you're in a busy area it'll take awhile to load and keep refreshing. Oddly enough, the Navitime Bicycle app has a really good area search where you set a radius and search terms, I've used that several times to success. It also doesn't have a subscription fee like the normal Navitime app, unless you want to do stat-tracking and other features which I've never desired.
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Oct 1, 2012 03:15
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I mean, why? It's not the 80s anymore. I can't imagine a rebranding is in store either, "Sprint" definitely rolls off the tongue easier than "Softbank" http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2012/10/11/softbank-to-buy-sprint-nextel/1626813/ zmcnulty fucked around with this message at 00:54 on Oct 12, 2012 |
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Oct 12, 2012 00:52
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"Why?" is the exact same thing I thought when I saw this on the news last night.
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Oct 12, 2012 01:31
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So my wife is due for the upgrade to the iPhone 5 on Softbank, but looking at the plan it seems like there's a 1,500 a month bump in the plan price for LTE and a 500 a month required WiFi bump. Is that right? To rephrase, is 8,000 a month what the iPhone 5 contract costs on Softbank or did we gently caress up somewhere?
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Oct 16, 2012 14:08
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Speaking of iPhone 5s does anyone have a KDDI iPhone5 around tokyo and find that the reception is really shoddy (much worse than my softbank iphone4) and that battery life is also horrible (probably due to the terrible reception)? Because I do, I regularly find my battery almost empty by 1-2am, and i leave the thing plugged into my work computer til 5pm most nights. I occasionally lose LTE and 3G even in my house, and of course anywhere underground except the subway. I'm seriously considering that the unit might be faulty, I just haven't found the time to head to a KDDI store to bug them about it. Also it's a free phone from my company and they pay the bills so I don't even know if I can take it in myself to be looked at or if someone from the company has to do it, urgh. I've heard KDDI is using an LTE frequency that doesn't do indoors well, is it just that?
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Oct 16, 2012 16:11
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Docomo comes out with the great-looking SH-02E in its winter lineup, then au one-ups them with the loving HTC J Butterfly. Wow. The SH-02E will probably be a clear winner in battery life, but outside support will probably be spotty and Docomo will probably be lovely in keeping it updated if its performance with other phones is any indication... plus the whole mail system upgrade isn't supposed to work with 4.1+ yet, so I doubt they'd be rolling out JB anytime soon.  On the other hand, the Butterfly has beastly specs and... a really lovely battery. I can't imagine it lasting more than 8 hours. But HTC has more popular support and... it comes out WITH JB on it. Hm.
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Oct 17, 2012 13:56
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You know, in a world with lots of Samsung and Apple, I forget there's HTC. They're hurting recently, Q3 saw a 79% drop in profit. I take it the LTE is only in the metro areas right? Anyone heard if they are rolling out 4G to other areas?
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Oct 17, 2012 14:34
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Docomo, at least has a big map of what areas have LTE now and expected rollout dates.
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Oct 17, 2012 23:56
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Stringent posted:So my wife is due for the upgrade to the iPhone 5 on Softbank, but looking at the plan it seems like there's a 1,500 a month bump in the plan price for LTE and a 500 a month required WiFi bump. Is that right? Ok, I guess no one knows this, anyone know what the rate is on AU?
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Oct 18, 2012 11:43
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My cousin wants to buy a Galaxy S3 but he doesn't really have any Japanese ability. The docomo site says "Japanese only" for the S3, anyone know if it's really not possible to change the OS to English? Finding conflicting reports online.
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Oct 22, 2012 13:26
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Lon Lon Rabbit posted:My cousin wants to buy a Galaxy S3 but he doesn't really have any Japanese ability. Answered you in the other thread, too, but yes, it is no problem to change the language from Japanese to English through the settings screen. Actually, the guy at the Docomo store did it for me without asking, but it really is just a question of choosing the right option in the settings part. The challenging part might be dealing with emails/messages, etc., from docomo, which are all in Japanese. Also, when purchasing the phone, it would be good to go through the options and cancel any paid bloatware services he won't be using. Saves having to do it later on another visit or via their Japanese-only mydocomo site.
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Oct 22, 2012 13:31
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Business of Ferrets posted:Answered you in the other thread, too, but yes, it is no problem to change the language from Japanese to English through the settings screen. Actually, the guy at the Docomo store did it for me without asking, but it really is just a question of choosing the right option in the settings part. Thanks for both answers! I'll try and go with him to the store when he signs up and look out for the stuff you said. On a related note, does anyone know if docomo has any of those good "switch carrier" rewards deals? I am getting sick of my iPhone (3 serious hardware problems in 1 year) and might be interested in an S3 myself after I play with my cousin's.
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Oct 23, 2012 11:12
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Lon Lon Rabbit posted:On a related note, does anyone know if docomo has any of those good "switch carrier" rewards deals? I am getting sick of my iPhone (3 serious hardware problems in 1 year) and might be interested in an S3 myself after I play with my cousin's. It usually depends on the store, not the carrier. For example, the Maebashi store I go to was running an awesome deal for families switching -- 10000 off each device and one free device. But that's just them. It also varies depending on whether it's an actual Docomo store or one of those general-purpose cell phone stores (usually have better deals but much worse prices).
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Oct 23, 2012 11:23
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Yay iPhone 5! I'm scared to see what my coming Softbank bills will look like - the idiot at the store took 30 minutes in the back room and then tried to move me away from the flat data plan despite my objections. So I'm prepping my old 4 for sale, and it appears to be presenting itself as a Hong Kong phone (where I thought it was a Japan phone). Is there something special going on here? snagger fucked around with this message at 05:27 on Oct 28, 2012 |
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Oct 28, 2012 05:22
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So I just got to Japan with my US Verizon iPhone 4S that had (theoretically) been set up for international roaming and the $25/100mb/month global data plan. I got about 20 minutes on the train from Narita where it connected to NTT Docomo and gave me 3G coverage, but other than that it just gives the generic "Roaming" and gives me poo poo for data. Anyone have any idea what's going on and how to fix it? I was kind of planning on making use of that 100mb while I was here.
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Oct 31, 2012 15:57
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Bakanogami posted:So I just got to Japan with my US Verizon iPhone 4S that had (theoretically) been set up for international roaming and the $25/100mb/month global data plan. I got about 20 minutes on the train from Narita where it connected to NTT Docomo and gave me 3G coverage, but other than that it just gives the generic "Roaming" and gives me poo poo for data. Just a couple low-hanging fruit here, but make sure Data Roaming is enabled in Settings > General > Cellular. Also check the carrier under Settings; you may need to manually choose a carrier for some strange reason.
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Nov 1, 2012 14:17
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Strangely, I can't seem to find an answer to my question, so I'm hoping you guys might help. I have a new IPad HD with LTE capability. I bought it in Canada, and I'm moving to Tokyo in January. I'm pretty sure there's no way it will work and I'll need to buy one via Softbank if I want the cell service in it right? Which means ill have to sell it off before heading over.
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Nov 4, 2012 22:16
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Not exactly a phone question but it does involve carriers. I had been hoping that Docomo would make a release that it was going to carry the Galaxy Note 10.1 since its something I've been looking at getting, however its been almost 4 months sense the launch of the Note in the US/Europe and not even a hint from Docomo. Anyone think this has something to do with recent bad blood between Korea and Japan? I noticed Docomo has announced it will be working with M$ Japan to carry Win8 tablets and be making a push into the corporate sector.
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Nov 12, 2012 16:28
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Kenishi posted:Anyone think this has something to do with recent bad blood between Korea and Japan? No. Probably market/lineup issues. I mean, Docomo has the new Galaxy SIII and the new Note II, so bad blood doesn't make much sense.
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Nov 12, 2012 22:34
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Kenishi posted:I noticed Docomo has announced it will be working with M$ Japan to carry Win8 tablets and be making a push into the corporate sector. What? Really? Do you have a link? Since I thought MS was all buddy-buddy with KDDI, at least in the case of Windows Phone. Which they notably have no plans to launch in Japan at this point
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Nov 13, 2012 01:33
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Microsoft Japan and DOCOMO to Grow Corporate Market for Tablets — Will create powerful synergy between Windows 8 OS and Xi LTE network —
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Nov 13, 2012 04:33
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Mapfan+ is now out, figures it'd come out shortly after I bought the main version. The map themselves are updated and seem to have the ability to update themselves, you can choose between online and offline modes. Offline maps are apparently going to cost money, but there's a free campaign going on right now so if you want them you'd better download them while you can. There's also a subscription service which seems geared towards drivers, giving you traffic and parking information, nothing I see as necessary. The app now has a proper nearby search tool, so you can finally search for specific things in your area. Oddly enough there are a few features from the old Mapfan which are missing here. The local search only has a few very generic options if you don't want to find something specific (shopping, restaurant, hotels, etc.), whereas the old app had lots of search options. The TV spot guide is also gone, which is kind of a shame since I did make use of it quite a bit. Maybe I'll keep both of them for now but I'll probably end up deleting the old version since I could use that 2gb of space back.
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Nov 24, 2012 12:46
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I got rained on again today. Is there a weather widget for Android that actually displays accurate weather reports?
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Nov 26, 2012 03:13
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