Sat Nav on S60: More a Rant than a Status Report

[slitchfield]

Back at last year's AAS Pub Meet (was it really that long ago?), Julie agreed to help me with a comparative review of Sat Nav applications for S60. We've produced odds and ends during the year, but you may be wondering where the promised head-to-head mega-review is. Good question. Read on if you're not offended by the sight of a grown woman (Julie) having a really good rant....

Read on in the full article.

[viipottaja]

Yep..

1) Nokia Maps "fastest route" once took me through a route that is probably at least 60 miles longer than the shortest route of about 200 miles. Ridiculous
2) Yes, Nokia Maps is great in that its free until you need the turn by turn instructions; was thinking of buying a license last week end for a short trip we made but.. 3 months???? I need to buy a 3 month license for a service I probably only need once in 3 months.. A two day or even a weekly licence would be much better and, I would think, might actually generate much more revenue and for sure much more usage for Nokia Maps.

[Tzer2]

Viipottaja, I agree that Nokia Maps licences seem to be a bit too "all or nothing".

I'd love to see an alternative arrangement where you pay a small fee per day or per route. This would suit people who only use it a bit, or who just want to try it out, while those who do end up using it regularly would have an incentive to buy a long term licence.

[stuclark]

Nokia Maps 2 is essentially still a beta as well, at least it is in terms of stability and speed on a lot of devices

Why ask for Beta then?? why try it on the device which is not supported? don't see a point of ranting at all.

[Enizmitic]

Although I agree with some of Julie's statements, I disagree with some. Tomtom has indeed stopped development of their navigation software for newer S60 devices which I think is primarily due to piracy. I think that the illegal distribution of their product was so prolific that they have ceased, stopped the development of this product, and I fear that this is occuring with other navigation packages, hindering further development beyond alpha/beta.

I wonder if she has tried packages from Garmin, which is a more polished product.

On another note, internal GPS use can be achieved by using a patch developed by a third party for Tomtom. Google is your friend.

Having participated in a very small, focussed research group taking an indepth look at Maps, the feedback from which fed directly into the Maps team, me and a bunch of other power users (all with experience of a variety of nav-systems) ALL concluded Maps 2.0 was basically at Alpha release level - i.e. FAR short of commercial software. It has HUGE promise, but is currently rubbish. Always unreliable, stupid UI, general bad design, missing features. No two ways about it. People are entitled to their prefs (though I suspect people's experience if they prefer Maps), but Maps is quite frankly a disgrace. Sort it out for V3 though and I am happy to be chief Maps cheerleader

[Tzer2]

Tomtom has indeed stopped development of their navigation software for newer S60 devices which I think is primarily due to piracy.

Where are all those people who claimed piracy was good for software sales? :-)

Being serious for a moment though, wasn't TomTom in some serious financial trouble recently on an unrelated matter? That might also have played a part in "streamlining" their supported platforms.

[Tzer2]

BTW regarding the interface comments, it should be interesting to see how Nokia Maps works on the upcoming S60 touch-based devices such as the 5800.

Most dedicated GPS devices seem to use touchscreens, so Nokia Maps on touchscreen phones could potentially use an interface much closer to dedicated units.

i have been using garmin xt for the last few months and it is great. the only issue i have is when i try to scroll around a map as the cursor moves very slow at first, then flies off to the side. i use it almost every day here in toronto and i used it recently in dallas with no problems at all.

i used tomtom with my p1i and a buetooth gps puck for a couple of months last summer and it was fne too. the nice part was being able to use the touchscreen, but i didnt use it as extensively as garmin or nokia maps. speaking of nokia maps, as a basic voice nav option it usually worked fine for me but if the installation of the app or the maps wasnt done just right the routing was a nightmare. i had to delete it and reinstall a few times for it to work right. what bothers me about maps is the price of the licenses now. when it was first released it the price was decent, but now i find it too expensive for me to look at unless i just needed it for 1 week or so.

i have not used nokia maps since i started using garmin.

[dbournique]

I'm trying a free ad-supported Java navigation app that I found today on GetJar on my N95-3. It's called amAze and while it's not perfect, I think I prefer it to Nokia Maps (ugh) and Google Maps, at least for navigation.

The killer feature of amAze is free spoken turn by turn directions.

I tested it on a three mile walk today with the phone in my pocket. I could clearly hear the directions and amAze didn't miss a turn. Directions were given about 150 meters before turns, which I think is actually a little too soon for walking (I did set amAze to walking mode). I deliberately ignored some of the directions and amAze took that in stride, recalculating and trying to telling me to turn again at the next intersection. Admittedly walking is an easier test that driving as the slow pace gives the software plenty of "thinking" time. Next test is to try it in the car.

The maps are a little busy for my taste - but in turn by turn mode the visual instructions are in a big font that I could easily read with the phone at arms length. Although with the vocal mode there really isn't much need to look at the phone once the route has been set

amAze is ad supported but thankfully the ads are neither audio or interstitial. Just small banners at the bottom of some of the screens.

I've been using Garmin Mobile XT ever since it became available. I've got both the NA and European versions and I have to say that it's worked exceedingly well for me. The clean UI, good voice prompts, and clear directions served me very well in many different cities across North America and Europe.

Recently, an update came out for Mobile XT which includes Google Local search, something I always felt that Garmin was lacking, and some general tweaks here and there. The update just makes the app that that much better than Maps.

I haven't tried TomTom but I did try out Nokia Maps 2.0. I found the directions really confusing, especially on highways that had multiple exits and lane changes within hundreds of meters of each other. I would constantly get lost because even the printed text in Maps would provide confusing direction, lacking things like the the exit number/complete name of streets.

I've been using Mobile XT for a good six months now and compared to Maps 2.0, it beats it hands down, at least when it comes to auto navigation. The Nokia app seems to have a lot of interesting features for pedestrian navigation but when I'm on foot, Google Maps ends up being a far better option since the app feels more responsive and searching for places is infinitely better.

My only issues with Garmin are that they don't allow you to move the software from their standard 2 GB microSD card to your own larger card and that there isn't the ability to get maps for different parts of the world loaded onto a single memory card. You have to physically swap out the microSD cards for each region. I really like the fact that Nokia Maps, through the Map Loader application, allows you to customize not just which regions, but even which countries you want to load onto a memory card. That greater flexibility means that you can carry map info just for the countries you know you'll visit, as opposed to having the entire continent's worth of info.

IMHO, Garmin Mobile XT is the way to go for auto naviation and the free Google Maps is perfect for pedestrian navigation. For anybody still reading this post, give the Garmin/Google Maps combo a try.

If you haven't already, its important to reinstall Nokia Maps 2 and the map data as they were all fixed up recently by Nokia. It works well on my N82...not perfectly, but well. I have found that its important to not use it too much on long, complicated routes as you most likely will ride some extra distance. Also, if you're navigating a city route it's important to sit back and just TRUST it to get you there. 99% of the time it will get you there, even if the routing is questionable. Once or twice it has brought me near to my destination but then driven me around in repetitive, non-progressive circles. I use it a lot and mostly it's pretty trouble free. As I said, just trust!

[igb]

I'll try updating my maps 2.0 software. Sometimes it's fine, but other times it *really* screws up. My worst experience was coming down from Scotland on the M6. I wanted to get to a Travelodge which was on an A road about 19 miles from the motorway. About a mile from the destination Nokia maps told me I was there and instructed me to turn into a narrow lane. Thinking that the place was obviously only a few yards away I turned into the lane.

Maps 2.0 then took me on a 10 mile drive through country lanes to emerge back on the A road next to my destination! It was 10:30pm and raining horizontally. I was towing a trailer, so couldn't easily do a three point turn and had three very tired children in the back.

Ian.

[Arthur]

Nokia Maps # 1 - lol, you're joking right? Nokia Maps is utter crapware.