@Wallace-Shackleton said:
We (I) can not even tell Garmin that there is an issue with Drive so some connectivity can be reestablished with my XT, so ultimately there is no hope of a future for the Zumo devices.
There is a lot of truth in your overall post. With the emergence of smart phones, navigation apps, and now CP/AA, dedicated GPS devices like Garmin are a dying breed. People use their phones for everything, and it's a natural evolution to extend their use to routing/navigation. However, I don't think Garmin will abandon the dedicated GPS market. Niche or not, they own it, and it gives them an overall market exposure they find valuable.
It doesn't help that the Garmin Drive/Tread apps have issues. This isn't the first time Garmin broke Drive with an update. And Tread is not always friendly wirelessly transferring routes, due to the Explore architecture they're pushing on their ecosystem of products.
The only thing I'd argue here is that Drive/Tread issues are well known. Or should be known to anyone doing their research. You don't have to use either app at all to effectively use the XT/XT2/XT3 devices for core navigation. Wired route transfer is effective 100% of the time. It never falters. In the years I used my XT, I didn't use Drive after I understood the risks of encountering a bad app update. On my XT3, I only use the Tread app for Traffic, Phone, Music and Weather. However, on Tread, I did not enable external storage (Explore), which is the component that allows for app transfer. Explore is the source of 99% of problems on XT2/XT3 devices. So, by understanding Drive/Tread behavior and only using the components that are stable and always work, I've never had export/import or route calculation problems with my XT/XT3 devices.
If you insist on using apps for transferring your routes, then Garmin is not your long term solution. In my case the XT3 has navigation functionality that doesn't exist in any phone app, so I live with the inconvenience of wired transfer. But honestly. it's not that big of a deal.