MRA refuses Google adress retrieval price hike

[MyRoute-app community]

Attention community,

On request of you, the user, I have delved a bit deeper into the ongoing issue of waypoints not receiving the appropriate adress while using MyRoute-app.

As you all know MyRoute-app is a small company. As a result of this, many of our suppliers see this as an opportunity to request huge sums for previously cheap or even free licences. It is a continuous struggle to get fair deals. In recent negotiations Google requested that we would start paying an unacceptably high price for the feature that automatically puts the adress on a waypoint. In light of transperancy on this issue I am informing you that as a result of this we have decided to simply refuse the contract and explore alternatives. This means that all your waypoints will be named "waypoint" upon placement.

As a small company we are sometimes forced to innovate in areas we thought we had covered. At present, it is disappointing to scrap a feature because of that, but, over time, this makes us stronger and more resilient to change. MyRoute-app will never change its position on the availability of free features for our BASIC users and a fair price for paying members.

We, motorists and motorcyclists, have something special here at MyRoute-app. We listen, we do our best and we are transparent even when it would be easier not to be. We do this because you deserve to hold us accountable for our performance. We are not guided by shareholders or sheer profits, we are guided by your trust.

Kind regards,

Timo

[Nick Carthew]

@Timo-Martosatiman-MRA BRAVO MRA Thank you for being honest and transparent and good for you for standing up to the big companies. What do Google do with all of their money? They certainly don't pay their taxes!

[Drabslab]

@Timo-Martosatiman-MRA

Honestly, as long as the points that I search by entering the address in the "find a place" box are stored with the adress (which is still the case ) I am not concerned.

The other waypoints are just to force my GPS to follow the roads that I select, not for visiting them. A neutral "wapoint" name may even be better than a whole address when considered like that...

But this may raise the significance of my favorites/POI ideas

[Hans van de Ven MR.MRA]

@Timo-Martosatiman-MRA
Well done MRA Team

[Brian Liechty]

I can appreciate the reasoning, but at this point I am very disappointed. What is the workaround? Without the addresses I am not seeing any particular value to using MRA any longer--they are critical for setting up routes and giving people directions. We never know the address in advance--it is based solely on the point we select on the map.

[Nick Carthew]

@Brian-Liechty

Hi Brian. I’d like to try and offer you a workaround but I’m not quite sure that I fully understand your problem. Can you elaborate on exactly how you use MRA please so that I might be able to help.

[Brian Liechty]

I appreciate the offer of help, Nick.

Trying to answer your question:

I start with a blank map and set a starting point. I do usually know the street address for the starting point, so I can use the "Find a place" function that for that.

From that point though, I simply click on various places and establish a route. After I get the basic layout set up, I go back and clean it up, making sure that all points are correctly on the road. I never know the roads I'll use or the towns we'll go through before the route itself is set.

Once this is finished I print as a ".pdf" file and export as a Garmin route so I can share with our other travelers.

Here is a copy of a recent route:

https://www.myrouteapp.com/route/open/2778374

Any suggestions for improving my process are welcome. I devised this system myself & there may be better ways that I just don't know about.

One as-of-yet-untested thought: Once I have the route established as I described above, if I can figure out street addresses I could go back in an manually update the file (using 'find-a-place') with those addresses instead of waypoints. But I'll have to figure out how to discover each of those addresses & that could be very time consuming when there are dozens of points to worry about.

I look forward to your ideas,
B

[Nick Carthew]

@Brian-Liechty When you say that you share with other travellers, is this for them to load onto their gps devices? Are you leading a motorcycle tour?

My first thoughts are; most waypoints are there just to shape the route, so the address is almost irrelevant. Those that are required for information can have either their street address or place name added. This can become more informative if you use coloured waypoints with an additional note added to that waypoint.
As RouteXperts, we use the waypoint colours thus:
Yellow for something you can see from that position. It could be a waterfall or a castle on a hill. You name the waypoint, then you can then add some info in the waypoint note. The name, yellow waypoint and note can all be seen when you print as a .pdf.
Green waypoints are used for photo opportunities.
Red is used for coffee, lunch or longer stops like a museum visit.
And Pink is used for information or a warning.
I’m sorry that it’s not a complete solution but I hope it helps nonetheless.
You can see the impact that coloured waypoints and added notes have on a .pdf version of a route. I find these very useful in the tank-bag when I’m touring.

[Brian Liechty]

@Nick-Carthew said in MRA refuses Google adress retrieval price hike:

@Brian-Liechty When you say that you share with other travellers, is this for them to load onto their gps devices? Are you leading a motorcycle tour?

They're always loaded on my Garmin. Sometimes on other's devices too. A tour, yes. But Miatas, not motorcyles. The use is quite similar other than that. In any given trip we'll cover 1800-2000 miles over the 4 days of driving. We rarely stop except for fuel and food during a driving day. The addresses have been critical because they define the route as we move along so we know where we are.

The waypoints are still there now, they just aren't labeled in a meaningful way. If I can figure out an efficient way to label I think it will be OK, although constructing a route will be a much slower process. Whilst unavoidable, it's a sad step backward for MRA.

Thanks for the colored flags suggestion. It doesn't solve this issue, but it's an interesting idea to try out.

[Drabslab]

@Brian-Liechty said in MRA refuses Google adress retrieval price hike:

Hai Brian,

I am not disputing what you say but with a GPS - except for the points you actually visit for lunch, or to visit something special - the waypoints have no other purpose but to force the GPS to ride the route exactly as prepared. There is not need to check where you are as the GPS tells you at every moment what the roadname is.

One point of MRA is that you can make a group of friends (in your case the Miata gang ) and each one of them can download the route that you have prepared to their own GPS, allowing everybody to ride together, but also without panic if half the group is stuck at a traffic light.

[Gary France]

@Timo-Martosatiman-MRA Weel done MRA. Clear, open, honest and transparent. What else could we ask for? It is terrific you are this open with your users.

[MyRoute-app community]

Thank you everyone for your continued support and confidence in us. As said, all that truly matters is your trust in us. I wholeheartedly agree that being as transparent as possible is essential to this.

What I didn't point out in my original message is that there are open sources alternatives. Just like when we switched our default map from Google to OpenStreetMap due to a radical change in the Maps API's contractual structure (which by the way, pushed many many small companies out of business), this will be overcome too. The development team and management is confident that we will be able to offer a viable replacement feature to the current situation.

[Guzzist]

@Timo-Martosatiman-MRA well done MRA!
I'm happy with the decision not to knuckle under in front of big companies. Especially if those companies are not honest and reliably and don't pay their tax!

I will stay with MRA and I'm sure, we will find a solution together.

[Ruediger Hoffner]

Well done, not paying high prices for that feature.
I personally do not use complete adresses for waypoint. If its a stopover i put a short description on that, the other waypoint names are only for routing and names are not relevant.

[Drabslab]

@Timo-Martosatiman-MRA Does it, from a cost point of view, make any difference which map we are selecting (standard, google, here, michelin, openstreet) and use?

Don't get me wrong, I do appreciate very much the possibility to switch between maps but if we could drastically cut costs by changing our working habits a bit and use the most expensive maps only to verify then... why not.

[MyRoute-app community]

@Drabslab In all honesty you should be able to use all the maps without worrying about what the impact of such costs would be on us. In general we manage this fairly well, but, we are not at a point yet where some suppliers are willing to engage with us on longer term contracts. Please continue to enjoy all the available features to the full extent for which you purchased them. Still, thank you very much standing with us.

[Erica]

@Timo-Martosatiman-MRA This is such a pity, whilst I understand your position, because it was a very important feature for us on our travels and one of the reasons why we chose for MRA. I truly hope an alternative will be found.

Thank you for your transparency and your efforts to source a solution.

Erica

[Nick Carthew]

@Erica There are solutions for this. Have you seen my reply to Brian Liechty in this tread above ?

[david forbes]

ive uploaded a route just saying "waypoint" into my garmin sat nav and it still comes up as waypoint for the address, i also uploaded it to basecamp and asked it to recalculate...still the same, no address just waypoint...such a shame really it was worth a try ...unfortunately for me personaly its no good for my needs and il just have to find an alternative ..like i said such a shame

[Nick Carthew]

@david-forbes What are your needs David? Maybe we can work something out. There are ways around this.
Tell me why you need addresses in the route points and I’ll see if I can find you a solution.