While the world waits for a tried-and-true navigation app from Apple, XRoad is taking advantage of the situation by offering up its
G-Map app in the interim.
Kicking Tires decided to take the new software for a spin, and while the map quality took a pretty harsh beating, the overall offering was highly praised. More specifically, not every street name was present during testing, meaning that you had to rely implicitly on the turn-by-turn instructions if you weren't familiar with your surroundings. Outside of that, however, it seemed to nail all the important points. Accuracy, routing, ease of use and design were all smiled upon, and it seems critics gave the street name snafu a bit of a break with the hope of future updates solving the issues. If you're still a touch hesitant to drop your hard-earned cash, give that read link a gentle tap.
[Thanks, Ronald]
posted Mar 9th 2009 11:16PM
Would Rachel Ray enjoy this?
O_o
xGPS is another great alternative that we have reviewed. But it will require a jailbroken iPhone. Although the navigation experience on smartphones today don't come close to portable navigation devices, they are getting closer by the day. PND makers should be nervous, as there is no longer a need for a separate device. Smartphones also have the benefit of having connectivity, so it allows more dynamic and up-to-date contents. Garmin is already going into the smartphone business, and we wonder how TomTom will evolve.
Staff@SkratchBoard.com
http://www.skratchboard.com
Wow what great news, more stupid things i can do to my iphone.
Yeah, this is just the next iFart!
Hey some of us actually like fart apps!
LOL at bill.
Wow,this is clearly the best looking turn by turn gps ever seen on a cell,yet. I might get low ranked for this, but if u go back to june of 2007 n see what gps devices were out. Youll notice iphone has also influenced/revolutionized gps devices...
Nuvifone to be released Q209 by Garmin. The maps are stored on the phone and will not need to be pulled from a cell tower. So basically it will work even when you out of range of cell towers. Might be nice when you're lost. The have a 2nd Nuvifone running Window Mobile and probably a 3rd later in the year running Android.
http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/15/garmin-asus-nuvifone-g60-hands-on/
http://www.garminasus.com/garminasus/cms/lang/en/welcome
It scored 5/10 for map quality and it doesn't even have voice guidance. If this is the best you've seen on a phone then you clearly haven't seen any of the contenders such as Nokia Maps which has been out a couple years.
I agree with Malkmus. I ran TomTom's GPS application on my old HTC 3300 and it would blow this crap out of the water.
What are you saying right now. iPhone hasn't been able to do navigation, so I don't see how you've decided that all the GPS devices were revolutionized by it.
And how is this the best app for a phone? Telenav on my Curve can speak what I have to do and every street name with 3D or 2D maps. The maps show the street names. It also offers traffic data and the ability to reroute based on upcoming traffic. Then there's the fact that Telenav is one app, not two divided into East and West at 900mb and $19 a piece.
It's saddening that you really believe what you're saying. Keep the fanboyism to yourself.
I've been using this for a while. The initial reviews on the app are bad because the first version was terrible and crashed all the time but the recent update fixed almost every problem with it. In a lot of ways it's not quite as good as some other phone's navigation programs, but the thing that really impressed me is that it downloads all of the maps directly to your phone the first time, so you actually don't need to have a cell signal for this app to work. It can completely rely off the GPS chip. I also really like the fact that it's a one time charge, then it's yours, you don't have to pay for it every month like other phone's navigation software. Anyway, still needs a little work, but it's a pretty cool little program.
Wow, after reading the reviews I thought I would give this a try. Now I want my money back. I live in Walnut Creek, Ca and it keeps telling me I am in Santa Clara, Ca. Totally useless if my starting destination is 40 min away from where I should be. Yet google maps seems to pin point me just fine.
I still use my old Garmin iQue, partly because of the screen orientation being portrait. IDK why people like seeing more to the side and less ahead when viewing "track up". ??? Unfortunately, this probably won't work so well on my 2G.
I agree that portrait would be of more use, but widescreen is just more satisfying to the eye.
Alas, as far as I can tell, no voice directions of any sort -- not even a "turn left in 200 feet" type thing. Or did I miss it?
Is it a welcome addition to the iPhone's app portfolio? Yes, yes it is. Is it vastly inferior to Nokia maps? Why yes, yes it is.
Is it split into two parts for $19 and 900mb a piece vs $free of Nokia Maps?
Yes. Yes it is.
I own this app on my iPhone and I can't understand how it could get a positive review from anyone who has used any other GPS nav app on another device. TomTom Navigator running on either my PalmOS Treos or my Windows Mobile phones from 5 years ago was 10 times better at everything than this decidedly mediocre app.
It's ridiculously choppy, the routing is full of problems, the actual nav interface sucks, and even the storage is stupid - How many people need to waste 1 GB of your phone's storage on a whole half of the US at once?
I wouldn't mind paying $100 for this if it wasn't crap, but as it is now I'm sorry I spent the $20.
xGPS does turn by turn WITH voice and it's free on Cydia. You can also grab parts of the map to DL to your phone if you anticipate being out of 3G range. Did I mention it's free?
This application just gave me a boner.
BOUGHT AND TESTED THIS MORNING TO WORK -- GREAT VALUE. HOPEFULLY WHEN THEY FIX BUGS THEY WON'T REQUIRE DOWNLOADING 900Mb AS THAT TOOK A COUPLE OF HOURS (BUT I WOULD DOWNLOAD THE ENTIRE THING AGAIN IF THEY INSERT THE FULL STREET DETAILS)
I bet people will order that holder even when they don't need gps so they can stick their iphone in the window, LOOK LOOK I'm special.. like all of them.
.
It's a great application, although I'm still wondering why it got pulled from iTunes now. It had room for improvement and my best guess is that Apple is working with them to provide some of the next upcoming technologies to their developers for the new software coming out this summer.
PacMaps.com