Saturday
Sep292012
How important are smartphone maps to you?
Saturday, September 29, 2012 at 3:00AM An obvious question given all of the controversy last week surrounding Apple, but for me they are not too important. I prefer to use a proper commercial solution that works offline as well such as TomTom.
Reader Comments (9)
I'm with you, Shaun. On the iPhone I used Navigon, and if I still had one I'd still be using it. And here's a dirty little secret of mine - even when I use a navigation app I still go to Mapquest and print out a route because I've been led astray by smartphone navigation before.
I think both are useful but for different things. Copilot for navigation. Google maps for finding places. The search feature is awesome: there's rarely anything it can't locate. I think Apple have made a major mistake and I just don't think they'll be able to compete in this area for a long time.
Very important as I drive a lot. When I had the S3 I used google navigation which improved with updates over time. Street view was handy to see where my end point was and what it looked like.
With the iPhone 5 I have copilot 8 with active traffic. It uses google search to find anything so actually it's better than google as maps pre loaded and can change route if traffic bad.
However turn by turn on Apple Maps has been excellent for 800 miles driving. Really excellent. Generic searching not so good. I sold my S3 on Friday and realised I had some time to post prior to my next meeting. I was driving down the A30 in Cornwall and fired up Siri. I asked where is the nearest post office. It showed me a list. I could see there was one not to far away so tapped it and Apple Maps directed me.
Nice but not essential. I use Tomtom which has so many more features than the default apps for either android or iOS that it's really no contest. There are lots of people that are either too flint to pay for app or don't know what they're missing who use the default option exclusively.
I use TomTom for navigation when needed, but I don't find it convenient for browsing a map. I did use Maps form time to time. From that point of view, I don't find the new Maps that much of a problem. I do have Google Maps saved to my Home Page however.
I don't rely on mapping on a daily basis... but when I do use it I prefer it if it works properly. Google maps and navigation have helped me get to where I need to go and it seems to have improved a lot over time.... as long as you're in your own country with an internet connection.
I am not a regular user, but like vboelema, when I need it, I really need it and it better work.
I prefer using google at home as I find it excellent on route options and will use navigon with downloaded local maps when in a foreign country.
I have found the Google Maps on the Android platform has certainly improved. From experience, there is no doubt about the quality of the map data, certainly better that I have seen by CoPilot or OSM, but it's failure is it's reliance on Google's home server to plan routes which has a heavy reliance on network connectivity, which is it's "Archilles' heel". Although map data can be stored locally, you have to select regions to download which I have noticed tend to expire with high frequency, and without the ability to calculate a route on the phone's software makes it a poor competitor to the commercial solutions. So a commercial solution is the only real solution.
I've long found Google Maps to be the most useful app of all, ever since I got my first smartphone.
I use other apps far more often, but Maps is the one that I'd struggle most without.
Last week I switched to CoPilot for driving, and so far it's been pretty dire. The lane-guidance info is particularly bad; it replaces all other info so I can't even see how to get to that junction in the first place. However I'll probably get used to its foibles and keep using it (possibly disabling lane-guidance). Maps will still be used for everything else though, e.g. finding my way around London on foot.
I agree that Google needs to shift processing onto the phone, at least when there's no net connection available. They've done that to some extent with their voice recognition so hopefully that's the start of a trend.