Review: Microsoft MapPoint

MapPoint 2010 Europe / North America

Microsoft MapPoint 2010 is the business version of Microsoft Streets and Trips 2010, just like Microsoft MapPoint 2010 Europe is the "big brother" of the consumer oriented Microsoft AutoRoute 2010.

MapPoint has the same user interface as the less expensive consumer version of the product. It can do everything Streets & Trips / AutoRoute can do, and more. MapPoint can do business mapping (statistics, analysis), comes with demographics data included (or add you own), and is programmable (you can write programs for MapPoint or use add-ons, unlike for the consumer version).

What's new in MapPoint 2010

The new MapPoint 2010 contains some very significant improvements. It has incorporated several user-suggested features. The following is a brief look at some of the differences between the new MapPoint 2010 (NA & EU) and the previous MapPoint 2009.

Map coverage:

• Microsoft MapPoint 2010 North America
  
  12 months fresher data.
  
  Detailed street-level maps and address find capability for USA (including Alaska and Hawaii), and Canada (all provinces and all territories).
  
  In addition, it also provides street-level coverage, but does not support address find for Mexico, Puerto Rico, and all three U.S. Virgin Islands (St. Croix, St. John and St. Thomas).

• Microsoft MapPoint 2010 Europe
  

The new Microsoft MapPoint Europe 2010 comes with street-level map data of 43 European countries versus the previous version of MapPoint Europe 2009 which contained detailed map coverage of only 36 countries.

Detailed street-level maps and address find capability for Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and United Kingdom.

In addition, it provides some street-level coverage, but does not support address find, for Albania, Andorra, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Gibraltar, Guernsey, Hungary, Ireland, Jersey, Latvia, Lithuania, Liechtenstein, Macedonia, Isle of Man, Monaco, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, San Marino, and Vatican City.

My wish for MapPoint 2011, or MapPoint 2012, would be to expand the ability of the Find feature to look up addresses in more (or all) countries in both, MapPoint Europe and MapPoint North America.

Map settings




The new Map Settings pane in Microsoft MapPoint 2010 is an excellent feature many users will love. It allows one to turn off unneeded map features to eliminate clutter and make the map more visually appealing for presentations, etc.

Show/Hide pushpin sets, Show/Hide pushpin balloons


Microsoft MapPoint 2010 has much improved pushpin management. It is now possible to toggle hide/show individual pushpin sets. It even is possible to toggle show/hide pushpin information balloons.

Delete visible pushpins inside or outside of a selected area



The above before & after pictures illustrate another improvement of pushpin management in MapPoint 2010.

Import / Export GPX files


MapPoint 2010 makes it possible to share data between other mapping software, online maps, or portable GPS devices by introducing the ability to import and export .gpx files.

Send to mobile phone, Send to GPS device


MapPoint 2010 Europe can send location information to a mobile phone as an SMS.


The North American version of MapPoint 2010 can, in addition to sending to mobile phone, send also to a GPS device.

Easier way to save defaults application settings


Users of MapPoint 2010 no longer have to save new template for some of the more basic items, such as setting their preferred map area to show upon start up, etc.

Rename Route Stops
More info in the Navigation pane


Pushpins are back!


One of the disappointments of the last year's MapPoint 2009 was the removal of the familiar pushpin symbols and substituting them with only 45 new ones. Version 2010 brings us 348 new pushpins. I think they do look just fine.

The 10,000 addresses import limit has been removed

Earlier versions MapPoint allowed up to 10,000 addresses to be imported at one time. This hard coded limit has been removed in the new 2010 versions of the software.


Back & Forward functionality returns!


MapPoint 2009 dropped the Back/Forward buttons. MP2010 doesn't bring the buttons back, but the functionality has been restored and it can be accessed either by going to the View menu, as shown on the above picture, or by using keyboard shortcuts Alt+ LeftArrow and Alt+RightArrow.

Pause Windows Media Player during spoken navigation instructions.

MapPoint 2010 is able to pause Windows Media Player while voice instructions are spoken. This is an excellent feature for those of us who use MapPoint for real-time GPS navigation. This feature can be enabled in Tools => Options => Navigation

MapPoint Books

MapPoint for Dummies

• Buy MapPoint 2010 North America - Includes free one year of access to all the MapPoint Tools and Downloads in the MapForums Downloads section ($99 value). Volume Discounts available. Free shipping within the U.S.

• Buy MapPoint 2010 Europe- Includes free one year of access to all the MapPoint Tools and Downloads in the MapForums Downloads section ($99 value). Volume Discounts available. Free shipping within the U.S.

Questions? Comments?

__________________
Marvin

Marvin, we need to add this to the wish list for Streets&Trips and Autoroute!!

It's way more useful than just for presentations.

When you are planning you usually want a bigger picture of things, so more detail when zoomed farther out. Sometimes when planning you don't mind a little more clutter if it allows you to see more POIs and things with a large area of the map displayed.

When you are navigating you generally want the least amount of clutter and usually a much smaller area of the map showing.

Score a double for Microsoft. Now let's go for a home run and put it into Streets&Trips and Autoroute.

...ken...

Can this mappoint service be mapped onto phones?

And also, if this service is able to be mapped into phone, will the service be able to run without internet connection?

Ken, I bet many of us, Streets & Trips users, would love this new "Map settings" pane, too.

Hi Mark,

to Laptop GPS World.

The above reviewed Microsoft MapPoint 2010 will unlikely run on a phone, unless the phone runs a PC OS, such as Windows XP or Windows Vista, etc.

Microsoft MapPoint installs its map data into the computer's hard drive, so no Internet connection is needed to browse the map and/or for real time GPS navigation.

__________________
Marvin

Oh Thank you for the response.

Actually I have one more question, if my application is a mobile VB.net application, can this MapPoint service be embedded into our application?

Mark, this is a good question for Eric's MapForums.

__________________
Marvin

Alrite, thanks for your help
=D