I am ashamed to admit it, but I am terrible at finding my way around when driving in the car. I need a GPS device with me or I’m almost guaranteed to get lost. Naturally, when I purchased my iPhone, one of the first types of app that I wanted to get was a GPS navigation app. While you can easily plunk down $49.99 or more for iPhone navigation apps like Tom Tom, I did find a few navigation apps for free or 99 cents. Almost all of them turned out to be unreliable or poorly designed. Just when I was about to give up on finding an inexpensive app and reluctantly shell out a good deal of cash for one of the expensive ones, I stumbled across the free MapQuest 4 Mobile app.
My first thought was, “MapQuest?? I haven’t used the MapQuest website in ages.” Before the era of the GPS device becoming something that the average person owned and before Google came out with its own maps feature, MapQuest was my “go to” website when I needed directions for places I had never been to. With everyone and their grandma now owning a GPS device, I have to think MapQuest has taken a bit of a hit in the number of people making use of their site. I shrugged and downloaded the app, unsure of what to expect.
I have to say I was blown away by the reliability of the MapQuest app and all the features that came with it. Entering your destination is as simple as clicking on the “Directions” tab on the bottom of the app and entering your destination address by clicking the “Edit” button. If you are not sure of the address of the place where you are going, there is a “Maps” tab that allows you to search for names of places or businesses. When you have your address entered or have found your destination by searching for it, you simply click “Start Navigation” at the top of the app and the app quickly plots a route and gets you on your way.
I was surprised at all the extra bells and whistles offered by this free app as well. The MapQuest app announces actual street names when you need to make a turn. This is a feature even my dedicated GPS device never had. I love this feature because it allows me to navigate without ever needing to look at the iPhone screen. One other feature that I have really enjoyed is the ability of the app to run in the background. After starting your navigation, you are free to switch to other apps and the MapQuest app will continue to speak up and announce your turns and street names while running in the background. If you are listening to music using your iPhone while you drive, the music volume will even dim down so that you can clearly hear your navigation directions when they are announced. I live in a small town and tend to walk to a lot of places, so the fact that the MapQuest app also offered a walking navigation mode was another big plus for me.
As you might expect from a free navigation app, not everything is perfect. I have experienced the occasional crash of the app or in rare instances have had the app struggle to find a GPS signal when other apps on my iPhone are having no trouble at all using the phone’s built in GPS features. Simply restarting the app seemed to clear up this issue when it did pop up. The search function in the “Maps” tab of the MapQuest application can also be maddeningly inconsistent. Sometimes it is able to find the smallest “Mom and Pop” restaurants but fails to find the closest Mcdonalds when I know there is one right down the road from me. Due to these search inconsistencies, I actually use the iPhone’s built in Maps application to find addresses for places I need to go and then just copy and paste those addresses into the MapQuest app for navigation. This has made the inconsistent search function of the MapQuest app tolerable to me.
If you are looking for a navigation app and don’t want to shell out a big amount of money, MapQuest 4 Mobile has proven to be a reliable navigation app for me. Though it does have a couple of downsides, the free price makes me more than willing to accept the minor issues that have cropped up.
Here is an app store link for Mapquest 4 Mobile.
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