Garmin Versus Droid, and the Winner? The Cigarette Man

Last week while on vacation, my son and I picked up my nephew, our destination being Isleta Lakes (to fish) and immediately a competition broke out.  Not a fishing competition, but a technology competition: “Driving Directions to Isleta Lakes.”

“Ladies and Gentelmen, in the back seat, in sleek black and running without a car adapter, the Garmin Nuvi, and his manager, Michael Tedlock.”

“And in the shot gun seat and sporting a sleek new case, Google Droid, and his manager, Dave Roberts.”

I immediately agreed to take driving instructions from both contestants and silence fell upon the cabin of our Toyota Highlander as both managers pressed buttons intently, each determined to be the first to have his device begin giving directions.  Meanwhile, I got on I-40 West.

Launch time was a virtual tie, as both devices immediately announced that I should “proceed on the indicated route.” The Nuvi spoke in a man’s voice with an Australian accent.  The Droid spoke in a woman’s voice with sexy undertones, but she spoke at the same time the Outback guy did, so it was difficult to hear either contestant.

Immediately my nephew, a gifted high school teacher and all-around-good-guy, said, “I tell you what, I’ll turn her off and we can just listen to yours, Michael.”

The Nuvi, with the Droid muted but keeping watch, took us down I-40 to I-25, where we headed south.  Isleta Lakes is on the Isleta Indian Reservation just south of Albuquerque, the reservation featuring most prominently a casino and resort, plainly visible to the naked eye from I-25, as is the exit.

Inexplicably, the Nuvi told us to exit I-25 prior to arriving at the reservation, and the Droid concurred, so off we went, down into the Rio Grande river valley.  The Nuvi had us head west for a few miles on a main artery, the Droid concurring.  Suddenly, as we passed a large industrial property with a sign that boasted Sheet Metal Works, the Nuvi announced in Australian, “Arriving at Destination.”  No lakes or water of any kind in sight.

From the back seat, my son made a puzzled sound and a frantic clicking of keys could be heard.  My nephew said, “Well the Droid says we’re not there yet.”  He turned on her voice.  She was sexy.  She told us to turn right and shortly thereafter left onto something like “Bakke Road,”  once again headed in the direction of the reservation, which was reassuring.

However, after several miles of scenic views of towering cottonwoods in the bosque a large sign loomed ahead: ROAD ENDS.

Shortly, another sign: XYZ CONSTRUCTION COMPANY ENTRANCE.  CAUTION.

Immediately we reversed course and implemented plan C – take the interstate down to  Isleta.  After exiting, to our surprise, not a single actual sign by the side of the road suggested the location of the lakes.  Finally, we got our directions from a wizened Isleta man who was running a tobacco stand out of a single wide trailer.  Again we reversed our direction and drove back three stop lights, a long way on the res.

The lakes, which have been there for decades, turned out to be lovely, with modern ramadas and brand-new rest rooms with running water conveniently located along the banks. 

My son almost immediately caught a huge catfish and twenty minutes later I caught one that underscored the monster size of his.  After that, we had many bites, but caught nothing.  My nephew Dave, truly the master fisherman, caught nothing though he did have a big one get away.

I thought about how we consumers do NOT spend major dollars on technology with the expectation that they are going fishing. 

We do not set out on a trip and say to ourselves, “Gee, let’s try the GPS and see whether we actually get to our destination – this’ll be fun.”

We do not say, “Well, that’s ok.  We didn’t actually arrive, but we did get close (we had some bites).” 

Our goal is not to report, “Well, for several seconds we thought we had a really BIG destination on the hook, but it got away and we realized we were lost.”

“Back in the Day” of the 286 personal computer, we expected and accepted limitations, problems and crashes.  Now, we expect our MAC’s or PC’s to work fast and never crash.

GPS – in cars, on Garmins and on phones – is a much younger technology, so our patience is greater, our performance expectations lower – for now.  Even so, perhaps there is much more at risk.  Back in the day, when a computer crashed, we sat at our desk and waited for the machine to reboot.  Today, if our GPS gets us lost, we can’t be sure we’ll find an Isleta man to show us the way.