From Magellan today:


Magellan(R) Announces New Triton(TM) Software

New software advancements provide a superior outdoor navigation experience

SALT LAKE CITY, July 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Magellan, one of the leading GPS brands, announces new advancements to its Triton series, including an improved user experience and overall product functionality of all Triton GPS devices and Magellan's VantagePoint desktop software. Magellan will showcase its enhanced Triton series at Outdoor Retailer Summer Market (booth #25011).


Magellan reinvented outdoor GPS when it introduced the Triton series, empowering outdoor enthusiasts with advanced design and innovative features. The Triton series is the first line of rugged, handheld navigation devices designed with a combination of brilliant color screens and ground-breaking mapping capability on all models, making Triton easier to use and more accessible to an expanding population of outdoor enthusiasts.


"In an effort to continue providing users with intuitive technology, Magellan dramatically upgraded the Triton software to enhance usability, increase performance, and improve quality for the complete Triton series," said Justin Doucette, Director of Outdoor Products Marketing for Magellan. "We are proud of our latest advancements because we are now offering the best outdoor navigation solution at the best price -providing consumers with the flexibility to customize their device to fit their navigation needs."


User Experience Improvements


The Triton series features many new improvements, including North American basemaps that provide more roads, more detailed locations, and better map displays. Additionally, advancements include improved communication between a user's PC and GPS unit; the ability to customize the user experience and gain quicker access to various features with a single click of the enter key; general systems settings are now more accessible on the Setting Menu; the ability to turn various pages on and off; a new elevation and coordinate entry user interface to easily add or modify values using the keypad; and the ability to access the Main Menu from any navigation page.


User-Generated Content


In most devices, the Triton offers the ability to support up to 2000 waypoints, 20 saved trails, and 40 routes; the ability to Start, Stop, and Resume track from the contextual menu; and the ability to Go-To-Next or Go-To-Previous point while in an active route.


More Additional Features


The Triton series offers the ability to: automatically notify the user when the battery is low, reduce backlight to help save battery life, quickly clear the active track line after the user decides to save a trail. In addition, users also have the ability to export and display more than just National Geographic TOPO! Maps. Now users can display Aerial and Hybrid Quads, as well having a single way to activate all National Geographic maps on the Triton or SD card. The upgrade also includes the addition of advanced features including the ability to add custom coordinate systems; and the ability to calculate an area based on active track, saved trails, and saved routes.


VantagePoint Improvements


Magellan's VantagePoint(TM) software, a powerful desktop application that enables users to customize the content on their Magellan GPS devices, has also been enhanced with a new user interface design, the inclusion of VantagePoint Lite for automatic software update alerts, GPS logging, improvements to map displays, detailed map legends, map layer customization, improved track playback, and the ability to edit tracks.


The new software release is available for free download at MagellanGPS.com. Additional updates will be announced over the following months. Units for review can be obtained by emailingrfinelli@magellangps.com

This also gives some hints as to what you can expect in the current BETA we are testing now.

When we will be able to download new software?

OK, sounds like good stuff. But, and there's always a but (or two), it sounds a lot like the the software that was released back in April. And there's no mention as to whether the ALL the units will now see the WAAS birds. And, And. What about Vantagepoint? Are they finally going to allow the user to mark geocache points as FOUND? And then provide a transfer/export filter? And what about the bringing back the file structure we all enjoyed with our so called legacy units?

Don't get me wrong, the last series of updates have resolved a few issues. And for those that were involved with them, I thank you. Guess I'll just sit back and see what the new software has to offer. Hummm, who knows, maybe Maggies starting to take our wishlist seriously. One can only hope.

Now we need to update the manuals

Two days later and they still haven't updated the web site. Sigh.

Big corporate structure -press releases are easy -getting the actual improvements delivered is more difficult. Many of the improvements are already in VP and the recent FW releases -really hope more is to come though. Seems like the new owners are trying to exploit the Tritons abilities in a more agressive manner. They need to gain market share back from garmin to survive(product line) long term.

Check out the comments by "cterres" in the following thread: interesting...

eXplorist features?!

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2652

The two things I hope for most are...

1. has the size of the geocache.
2. Can mark a cache as found in the field.