Tried Testing MapQuest for iPhone Voice Navigation, Aborted as It Sucked Too Much
I noticed that the latest update to MapQuest 4 Mobile for iPhone added voice navigation – and I thought I’d give that a spin today when I picked my daughter from school. Unfortunately, using the app was so painful, and it honestly just sucked so much, that I never even got ‘on the road’ with it.
Here’s a quick list of things that drove me away from the app altogether rather than the app helping me to drive somewhere:
– Getting my current location wrong by several miles (while the Maps app gets it spot on) – check.
– No way to just force-feed it my correct current location – check
– Goofy and wrong search results for my daughter’s school – check
– Telling me ‘No address found’ while it showed me an address I wanted to use as the start point for directions (as shown in the screenshot at the top of this post) – check
– Making it near impossible to get valid directions for a place just a few miles away – check
For the first few minutes of using the app the thought that it sucked compared to the Maps app crossed my mind several times. After hitting on all the stupid issues mentioned above, I decided the app just sucks – even without any points of comparison.
So needless to say, voice navigation testing was aborted – although I would’ve loved for there have been a way to tell the app where to go. It would’ve been very short, easy directions.
Your mileage with the app may vary of course – but my mileage counter with it will be sticking at zero.
I had a much better experience. I tested it while driving to a frequent destination. It worked fine – the audio worked great – I was listening to a Podcast while driving and the driving directions came through loud and clear.
I am pretty excited over this app. I don't own a GPS nor iPhone App for nav w/ turn by turn directions.
Glad to hear you've had better luck with it. It was terrible for me – ditched.
I'm sure they'll (try) to fix it with the next update. I'll try it then.
Hope they do.
Worked great for me, it asked me if I want to go from my current location. It stayed right on track with me for a hour drive home and when I didn't take the direction suggested it asked if I wanted to re-route. Worked great for a free app.
What it sounds like to me (and I am not a developed or a programmer) is that it was trying to use cell triangulation to get your location instead of use the internal GPS. Sometimes (about 10-20% of the time) the first 5 seconds using Maps it shows my location via cell triangulation me before using my actual GPS (on my BlackBerry Bold it was 100 % of the time, and some people called this a "feature"). When it does that, it tends to guess off by about a mile. Now the question is why… I am wondering if you have some location aware app that somehow caused a conflict? Although this seems kind of unlikely as I have backgrounded and made Maps, TomTom, and Navigon, all fight it out simultaneously.
The interface is clunky and the voice is hard to understand if you are not paying attention. It reminds me of that very first voice direction app that everyone used to install right after Jailbreaking, although Mapquest draws maps much smoother than that app did. That said, it matched my Garmin Nuvi for directions and handled me intentionally missing a turn just fine. It also takes me back to simplier pre-iPhone days when internet came through AOL, and online directions were printed out ahead of time using MapQuest
Navigon and TomTom are much better, but I am trying to be patient for Google Navigator to make it over to the iPhone. After all, when I search for something (even something common and easy like Famous Daves) I always use Google anyway (even with my Nuvi on and ready to go).
Thanks for the thoughts John. I really did it give quite a few chances. Exited and restarted the app several times. rebooted the iPhone, flipped Location services off and on. It still had my current location way off.
Oh, and I don't have any other navigation software on the iPhone – Maps is my only other similar app and I hadn't touched that in a couple days prior to trying MapQuest.
Ydid you ever get home from her school?
worst navigation app out there…setup routing to Charlotte, Nc from our home and it had me going on back roads till it finally got me on expressway when it could /should have noted we are three streets away from the expressway..tried it on the iphone's map and it did get the right way…seems like Mapquest has not updated their mapping software for decades..eliminated the MAPQUEST PROGRAM
Nope – still trapped there, figured I'd just take 1st grade again while I'm here.