But as wonderful as navigation apps are, they have been about as passive an experience as watching TV, with the key difference of directing most of your focus away from their screens. Enter your destination, maybe pick a route, sit back and drive. Of course, there may be the occasional traffic alert (that will often be provided too late to be actionable). And then there is the new app Waze, which cues you in to trouble spots around town when you stop at a traffic light.

As our eyes have now been opened to what is possible with technologies such as Siri, though, we can imagine a more interactive but no less distracting kind of navigation experience, one that responds naturally to questions with network intelligence. At any point during a commute, to use a local example, one might blurt out something like, "How's the Grand Central Parkway looking?" The app would then report back on the level of traffic on that highway and suggest whether you'd save time switching over.

Or let's say a driver is heading to a party when he receives a request from the host asking to pick up some cake. The driver could have a short verbal exchange with the software about where might be a suitable bakery along the way and have the app seamlessly add in that side trip. Today, in contrast, one would have to either program the destination in advance or pull over, end the trip and search for and enter a new destination. And of course, not all roads less taken would need to be taken while on a current route. A driver whose memory was jogged while passing a pharmacy, could set a reminder to pick up a prescription on her commute tomorrow.

GPS technology has always shined when we are on an unfamiliar path. Pairing it with an intelligent network agent, though, could imbue even a familiar journey with an unfamiliar level of convenience.