My late uncle and I were very different people. Despite being the two ‘fixers’ in the family, the ones who got the busted kettles and the snapped gear cables from the rest of the clan, we were poles apart in one area: our approach to warranties. Even though he would keep his cars going for 20 years, he had a very sharp understanding of what should be his responsibility, and what was down to the vendor.

Actually, that’s an understatement. Woe betide the firm whose slipshod customer handling captured his attention. Once the horn-rimmed specs and the Brylcreemed bonce were aimed in their direction, he would pursue them relentlessly, his measured drawl torturing their receptionists until they actually did put him through to the MD or the Company Secretary (which incidentally is still quite a good one to try, since chancers seldom know enough about company law and structure to try that route).

I am the opposite. I fix (where I can), and like him I take great pleasure in diagnosis. However, I have a low opinion and equally low expectations of what happens when one tries to make a warranty’s promises stick. This is largely because my career in computing has spanned the period during which price of equipment has fallen so spectacularly as to leave me groping for metaphors.

I have a low opinion and equally low expectations of what happens when one tries to make a warranty’s promises stick

I can remember a DEC engineer turning up to put a memory upgrade in our VAX. He marched through the door and waved a plastic briefcase. “I’ve got a Testarossa in here!” he declared – meaning that the contents were worth the £60,000 of a then-hot Ferrari. This last month I’ve received 32 times that much RAM, shipped (and dropped) by the US Postal Service, for £250.

It’s difficult to run a perfect warranty upkeep process when prices are low and margins are tight. Unlike my Uncle, I have a “time is money” attitude (if he was the Obi-Wan Kenobi of our family then I’m more like Iggy Pop). When I start to see signs of undermanning or deliberate sandbagging during a server warranty claim and engineering visit, I will occasionally take the view that throwing money at the problem is worth it to keep the project on track or the service level up to scratch. Those who always take the opposite view are surprised when I sympathise, out of character, because I remember my Uncle and his completely different way of doing things.

However, I don’t think either of us would get very far pursuing warranty or fitness-for-purpose claims in the smartphone and app store business. App stores are supposed to be great, easy gateways for developers to reach new markets, and for users to benefit from an intermediary’s validation and quality control processes. However, there are plenty of opportunities for gaps between the promise and the reality.

One early example from last summer was a first generation Windows Mobile 7 phone. These could lock themselves completely as part of the ActiveSync system update, with a message of “take me to your dealer” for a complete factory reset and retry. I had one on test that duly bricked itself; it had a Vodafone PAYG SIM in it so I went to a Vodafone shop to get it sent away and reset. “Sorry,” they said, “not sold through us. Not our problem”. Despite asking around, I couldn’t find anyone who would actually do the necessary reset.

That was irritating, but not as irritating as Navigon’s Android satnav app. It costs a relatively whopping £60, and with Europe-wide maps it also demands at least an 8GB data card. Nevertheless, it seemed like an excellent deal for me, since I could sell my single-purpose satnav unit (also from Navigon) and come out of the overall deal about £20 in profit.

And a good deal it proved to be for the rest of the year, but then I didn’t travel for a bit so the Android phone got a rest. Next time I got it out, several apps (including Wyse’s excellent Pocket Cloud RDP client) had pending updates. Leaving it on charge and updating, I went to pack, and threw the travel kit in a lightweight laptop bag (pre-checked to remove sharp implements, tools and network cable testers – airport security people simply interpret them as Semtex, so far as I can tell).

So when I sat down in the hire car at Zurich airport, I got a nasty shock: “Activation failure,” said Navigon for Android. “There has been a connectivity failure.” While waiting in the queue to change to a more expensive car with included “Navi”, I proved there jolly well wasn’t a connectivity failure, by surfing the net and looking up the address to fire off a complaint, via the Android Market, to Navigon. I might as well have tucked my complaint in the Schnapps barrel of a passing St Bernard – it vanished.

I could go back to the credit card company and invoke the Sale of Goods Act – except it was an update, several months after the purchase, which interfered with the functionality of my property. I can’t even find a rollback button, which is the kind of thing one might expect after we’ve been through 40 years user interfaces and software delivery.

A truly international marketplace also means there’s little likelihood of a consistent approach to regulation. My Motorola DEFY picks up the central Android Market and the transaction is in sterling, so the actual relevant legal domicile for calling these people to account could be California (for Google), or the UK, or Germany (for Navigon) – except that the app store makes no provision for escalating this kind of failure.

So while app stores show every sign of being the way forward, my experience shows that the current invocations leave much to be desired when it comes to the traditional balance between the rights of the vendor and the rights of the customer. In fact, I’m thinking of proposing a new PC Pro award. I’ll call it the Customer Responsiveness APP Award – or CRAPPA for short.

In short, the company released a major update for the TomTom 940 almost two months ago which simply didn’t work. It wouldn’t connect to the online TomTom Live services, which is the very reason for having this device. The Live services gives you features such as live traffic rerouting, Google access and so forth.

It was immediately clear that users in the UK were having major problems. TomTom recommended that you downgrade the software and reinstall the old V8 software, then catch it before it reinstalled the new, buggy V9. Worse still, it seems that the software upgrader managed to lunch on your stored favourite and recent locations, which meant the product was returned to a near out-of-the-box configuration.

Understandably, Tomtom’s PR tried to put as brave a face as you could on the whole issue, being stuck between a rock and a hard place.

However, on Friday last week, TomTom released a new V9 upgrade. At this point I would love to say the upgrade from V8 to V9 went without any issues this time. Unfortunately, I cannot. The upgrader kept falling over some postcode files, which in the end I had to manually delete from the TomTom in order for the upgrade to complete. But since then, it appears to be working.

I would like to say “case closed”. But I am somewhat appalled at the way this update has been handled by TomTom. Will I buy another TomTom product? Frankly, maybe it’s time for me to look at the opposition.

I could tell something was wrong when my dad started grinning from ear-to-ear the moment he switched the sodding thing on, before we pulled out of the car park. Five minutes later, something was definitely wrong, when for the third time in as many minutes, we had to cut across three lanes of traffic to make the required turn, only to get even more lost than we were in the first place.

The reason? Mr Cleese’s hilarious directions threw in the suffix “beaver right”, every time he issued the genuine direction “bear left”. Bear, beaver, get it? Yes, it had me in fits of laughter for, ooh, nano-seconds. The problem was, with the traffic noise and iffy speaker I couldn’t really hear what Basil Fawlty was saying, and thus bellowed at my dad to hang a sharp right every time he took a left. There’s a place for weak puns, and that place is The Daily Express - they have no place on satnav commentaries.

So it was with a weary sigh that I discovered TomTom is adding Yoda’s voice to its line-up of novelty accident causers this afternoon. Then I watched the spoofed “making of” video on YouTube, and I have to admit, it made me laugh…

However, during our research for that feature we endured almost an hour of hitting brick walls when attempting to download maps directly to a Nokia phone. And that’s a real shame, as Nokia has one of the more interesting pieces of satnav software, and it generously provides free maps for every country we can think of.

Showing a sense of humour we really didn’t appreciate, Nokia’s online instructions made you run around in circles. Click here, it said. No, here! No, not there, here! But we’re back where we were at the start, we cursed. Much anger ensued.

While Nokia has improved things in the past few weeks, to the extent that there is actually some sound advice on its “Find and download new maps page”, it’s still confusing to the Ovi Maps newcomer.

But fear not: here’s a step-by-step guide explaining exactly what to do and how to avoid the pitfalls Nokia doesn’t consider important enough to actually explain in any depth.

Step 1: Head to nokia.co.uk/maps

Above you’ll see the homepage. Now you should click on “Free country maps”, on the left-hand side under Free Downloads, which will take you to…

Step 2: Select your phone

… this page. Where, logically, you select your phone. We’ve got the E72 on loan right now, so we’re going to select that one from the dropdown menu…

Step 3: Install Ovi Maps on your phone

While there will be a version of Ovi Maps on your phone already, it probably isn’t the most up to date version. So, download Ovi Maps (just follow the automatic prompts), connect your phone in PC Suite mode, and then install Ovi Maps on the phone itself.

Step 4: The gotcha

All looks good. Except it isn’t. The crucial piece of advice is tucked away on the right-hand screen: to add maps to your phone you need to have Nokia Ovi Suite installed on your computer.

This isn’t to be confused with Nokia PC Suite, which is the suite you’re more likely to have installed. (A separate piece of map-loading software used to be provided to accompany Nokia PC Suite, but it it’s no longer available.)

If you do have Nokia PC Suite installed then uninstall it.

Step 5: Install Nokia Ovi Suite

Install Nokia Ovi Suite. Annoyingly, you may have to reboot your PC.

Step 6: Download the maps

With Ovi Suite installed, you can finally download the maps to your phone. Or, more precisely, to your desktop PC, at which point they’ll be transferred to your phone.

Open Ovi Maps on your computer, then click on View | Go to | Maps. Note that your phone needs to be connected to the PC at this point; make sure it’s in Nokia PC Suite mode rather than USB Mass Storage or anything else.

And from this point on, it really is easy. Ovi Suite handles the process of putting the files on your phone, which means that when you’re out and about you won’t need to suffer the pain (and potential expense) of downloading over 3G.

Using the 9.7in iPad screen as a satnav struck me as potentially reckless. With that A4-sized device mounted on your windscreen, you’re going to be blocking out a sizeable chunk of your field of vision. It’s more than double the size of TomTom’s biggest device, the Go 950.

Can sticking such a hefty device in your windscreen be legal? The law is decidedly vague when it comes to in-car technology. The Highway Code warns of the “danger of driver distraction being caused by in-vehicle systems such as satellite navigation systems, congestion warning systems, PCs, multi-media, etc.” and states that “You MUST exercise proper control of your vehicle at all times.”

Nevertheless, it appears there are no hard and fast rules about the size of screen you can use; it’s seemingly at the police’s discretion to decide if you’re driving without due care and attention.

So how do you mount the enormous iPad on your dashboard? It seems several different mounts are already available, such as this Air Vent Mount sold on Amazon US. Certainly, I’d be nervous of entrusting my £500 iPad to a windscreen sucker mount, which in my experience tend to wear out within a year or so, as the rubber becomes less and less supple.

But by placing the mount in the car vents, the driver would have to take their eye off the road to glance down at the screen, making it inherently more dangerous, in my opinion.

CoPilot’s marketing director David Quin predicted the iPad satnav could catch on  with lorry drivers, who naturally have more windscreen real estate to play with and often already carry hefty terminals. But I’m intrigued to know: would you use an iPad as a satnav in your car? Let me know why (or why not) on comments below.

Stross is definitely Our Kind Of Author, though I find he has that breathless Linux-Nerd way about his writing which immediately puts my teeth on edge (but doesn’t stop me reading). He clearly has some technology scars about his person and has done at least one book (Halting State) which suggests a high degree of familiarity with the online world and software development.

Anyway, at one point in “the Jennifer Morgue”, Stross stymies his heroes by having their transport crash – in software, not by running into something solid. As he no doubt intends, I had a nerdy chuckle at that while the Airbus 319 speared through the crystal-clear air across a Europe whiter then even the dreams of the BNP could make it.

Then I got in my hire car.

Every so often, I do these trips: fly or drive to Munich and then drive to St Moritz. It’s that last leg that turns the trip from a boring air-miles collection exercise, into one of Europe’s greatest drives. It’s also far better to drive it than to attempt a flight or other public transport. So, I’m in the habit of hiring a car at Munich Airport. Rather than learning the satnav (in German) in any one of 20 models suitable for winter driving, I take my all-Europe satnav with me. This saves a few quid by allowing me to pick non-satnav cars, and I can invest my brainpower in getting round the annoyances of just one device, instead of having to second-guess several devices (the Renault Scenic satnav, for instance, hadn’t achieved signal lock in the entire trip from Airport to Hotel – about 30 minutes worth).

This time I had my Garmin Nuvi 770 in my bag. it had been in a drawer for a bit, because my UK car has its own satnav, so when I fired it up in the renter I expected to have to wait for a while for signal acquisition and so forth.

What I didn’t expect was a message saying “The following maps are out of date: City Navigator North America[Capital G with a caret above it]CityMap” and an OK button bottom-right on the touchscreen. And that was it. The button did nothing: I could turn the unit off, and when it came back on it would industriously reload all its maps – and show the same un-dismissable alert.

Now, I didn’t buy or load the North America map set on my device: it seems it was there already. I’ve never used it in North America, so I’d rather remove that map than have to take care of updating it, but even when I follow the instructions on the error message and link the gadget to the net with the updating applet the message doesn’t go away.

As I was trudging down to the rental car desk in -18 Celsius to swap to a car with satnav, I suddenly remembered that implausible plot device in “The Jennifer Morgue”. Maybe Stross isn’t as far out as I first thought. Which, if he’s right about the other things in the book, should keep you awake at night!

But there was one thing that really entertained us without fail: the obligatory map-reading fiasco. Some of the finest arguments I’ve ever witnessed occurred in the front of our car, usually to a bizarrely ill-fitting soundtrack of Paul Simon’s Still Crazy After All These Years (thanks for that, Dad). So it’s with great sadness that I realise I’ll never repeat the great shows put on by my parents.

You see, over the last few days I’ve driven nearly 1,400 miles around the UK on a bit of a mountain climbing quest, and the journeys were, it has to be said, uneventful. And it’s all the fault of my car’s newest shiny gadget, its very own 1.21-Jigawatt flux capacitor, if you will. Also known as TomTom.

From London to Edinburgh; Edinburgh to Fort William; Fort William to the Peak District; from there to Snowdon, and finally back to London – TomTom was in control. Copious helpings of Red Bull and Pro Plus aside, the only genuine excitement I got was pranging the back of a Volvo in a service station at 2mph – and even then TomTom knew every slip road to guide us back out of the car park to the motorway.

And the worst part is that I absolutely loved it. I’m totally, utterly sold. Combine this with a Garmin GPS watch, which kept us updated on exactly how high up our three peaks we’d climbed, and I can safely say my limited map-reading skills will now be going the same way as my handwriting and my ability to remember phone numbers.

I know that’s not a good thing, I know gadgets are eroding old skills that we should all have, but when they make life so easy I really can’t muster up the effort to complain.

My only nagging doubt is that somewhere there’s a giant uberTomTom hooked up to a PS3, playing Gran Turismo and learning to actually drive the routes it knows so well. When that happens, when we all sit back and give up the driving to the real experts, I plan to retire in style.

Anyone know where I can buy a DeLorean?