Does Google Navigation not exist on iOS?
No. Not turn-by-turn voice. Some of us don’t mind paying for working solutions. No need to be a platform prick and mock other users.
Nope (what Rei said, the basics are there, but not turn by turn etc.)
But lets not fool ourselves. While Google Navigation is brilliant for a free offering it does not beat Navigon, Garmin or TomTom at their own game.
Edited to add:
But free is hard to beat. Especially the free constant map updates compared to the Navigation companies pricey alternatives on map updates.
(To be clear, I wasn’t doing the CCZ thing. I had just assumed it was available, and was surprised that nobody mentioned it.)
As far as beating Garmin/TomTom at their own game, I think it very much does. I was using it this weekend, and it gave me better directions than Karen (my Garmin) did, especially around areas where streets randomly change directions and names. Karen would have said “In .2 miles, turn right onto Podunk Avenue” where Google would say “In .2 miles, Wilson St. turns right and becomes Podunk Avenue”, which is rather clearer about what’s happening.
Combine that with the superior display, the better voice input, and the constantly up-to-date map, and it’s just really no contest. Maybe as I use it more, I’ll find something that doesn’t work well, but at the moment, I don’t see why I’d bother taking my Garmin out of the glove compartment again.
I don’t think he was being a prick. Yeesh.
No, CCZ was totally being a prick and always is regarding Android vs iOS.
Interesting.
This is what TomTom also does (and has been doing for longer than Google) with their HD Traffic - Navigon (recently bought by Garmin) has a similar tool, so I wouldn’t call that fight just yet. That article is lacking, though.
All services has access to the same official data on traffic, so the battle on this one aspect is how well the user generated stuff works - here number of users are really important. There’s no question that there’s more Android phones out there than dedicated GPS units, but on this the question is how many of these are actually being used for in car navigation (since they’re the only ones helping generate data).
TomTom’s HD Traffic works very very well and I haven’t tried the comparable Google offering.
Of course there’s two main reasons I won’t switch (and I don’t think I’m the only one with those issues):
[ul]
[li]I think the iPhone is better than any Android and Google isn’t offering navigation here (and Google have a ways to go before burying the iPhone, so just focusing on the other half of smartphone owners will provide a market for non-Google navigation).[/li][li]I don’t want my navigation to be reliant on cellphone coverage (and as a subset I travel a lot abroad and as long as there’s such a thing as international roaming, streaming data holds no interest)[/li][/ul]
The best GPS would be the one you have with you that you know actually works when you are in an area with no data connection.
No, it really isn’t lacking. You’ve just missed the point of the article, which is that the Google Navigation software is good enough that it’s beating Garmin and Tom Tom in the one way that matters most to them-- market share. Hence the phrasing of my previous post.
Clicking on the nice Nasdaq links in the article actually shows Garmin on the rise again (and the article speaks nothing of TomTom apart from briefly mentioning them). So even as a stock market analysis the article is dated and lacking.
But yes, when Google launched turn by turn navigation both TomTom and Garmin stock prices took an immediate fall (about 20% I think), that’s hardly surprising and since I don’t own stock in either company, not really interesting either.
As a consumer I’m interested in the quality of the navigation products, which is what was being discussed.
Guys, as much of an Android advocate as I am, isn’t this thread discussing the iPhone? Do we HAVE to have another Android vs. iPhone argument?
You cannot mention iPhone in a thread title without Android zealots entering to troll… they’re the Linux neckbeards of the smartphone world.
(the zealots, I’m not talking about the vast majority of Android users who’ve just made a different purchasing decision without buying into a religion at the same time)
Hey, in my own defense, I didn’t troll Mr. Lauring. :P
I was being a little bit of a prick, but when it comes to iOS vs Android, turn about is fair play and us Apple-anti-fanbois need to jump in and strike where we can, and general purpose car-dash solutions are one area where Android just clearly dominates the iPhone. Anyone who disagrees hasn’t tried both or is in some kind of serious denial. Not only can I run Google Navigation for free, but I can run it at the same time as I run Google Music with my 20,000 in-cloud music library available to stream into my car radio via the phone. GPS and a virtually unlimited music library! All runs at the same time!
I totally disagree on the point that Google Navigation is simply ‘good enough’. I’ve used the iPhone offerings, I’ve used in-dash solutions that shipped with high-end cars, and I’ve used high-end add-on dash units and I wouldn’t choose to use any of those over my “crappy” $150 unsubsidized Android phone (LG Optimus V). It isn’t just free, but it actually works significantly better than the non-free options in my experience. The only thing the other units do that I would consider at all better than Android is some of them (certainly not all) do have superior text-to-speech options, with the ability to use celebrity voices or whatever else… personally don’t care too much about that, but it is the one thing I’ll concede that some other options have over the stock Android experience.
Yes, Android’s awesome GPS is partly due to a reliance on an always-on network connection so you can’t use it without at least spotty data coverage (you don’t need persistent coverage, because only the gps signal needs to be persistent, the google navigation software will pre-stream map data in sufficient quanitites that the entire system still works seamlessly if your data connection isn’t fully out for many miles at a stretch), but I’m fine with that because in the real world my data coverage has never been an issue.
YMMV in non-US countries or deep in the heartland or whatever, but where I drive I’ll trade constantly updated maps over the network for local-storage maps every time.
Take your pick of any Android-related post to Engadget or other similar blog. Then go count up how many of the comments to said blog post are Apple diehards ranting (often ignorantly and wrongly) about how much better the iPad or iPhone is than whatever Android device being discussed because of XYZ. This is hardly an Android-user specific thing.
OK, since I started this post, can I ask to have the thread back on the reason I posted it? Which is what are the best iPhone GPS apps and what are their pluses and minuses vs. my dedicated Garmin? Or do I need to just start another thread again?
I just noticed another oddity - just for trying some things I tried to use Navigan on the way home from work (a short drive) and never was able to get a good enough GPS connection for it to work. Why would it be that much worse than my Garmin? Is the iPhone GPS reception that much worse than the dedicated Garmin? I had a good full barred Verizon 3G connection.
I can’t speak for all iPhones but the GPS receiver on my iPhone 3G was so bad it would only work when the unit was literally mounted directly to the windshield of the car. Being on the dash in a position that seemed like it should have LOS to the GPS satellites didn’t work, it almost had to be mounted outside of the car to work as expected. Back when I had an iPhone, the higher end GPS solutions for it included external GPS receivers (for extra money, of course) to deal with this problem. I’ve never had an issue like that with any of the non-iPhone GPS-aware phones I own, despite all three being from different manufacturers and some of them being made much more cheaply than the iPhone. I’d speculate it might be a situation where looks have trumped practical use on the iPhones, much like with the “Antennagate” situation, though for all I know maybe newer iPhones have improved the GPS reception.
FWIW, the 3G connection strength is totally a separate thing from getting a good GPS signal. GPS units need to receive a signal directly from the GPS satellites, and in general don’t work too well indoors or when their receivers are too deeply mounted in a car. Some units are better at picking up signals in less than ideal situations than others.
As CCZ said your bars only show mobile connection and has no bearing on GPS reception at all (of course some issues will influence both).
While I haven’t seen any properly measured comparison between various phones (and CCZ’s typical “Android does this better” doesn’t really help you as an iPhone owner) the iPhone4 has better GPS reception than the 3G and 3GS but absolutely NO GPS enabled phone has as good a GPS antenna as a specialized navigation unit.
Antenna technology and size are the main issues - TomTom makes an iPhone cradle with a built in antenna because of this.
God, Android users are the new Atari ST users. Except your platform is now winning, so you can all shut the fuck up now, okay?
As for Google Maps, yeah, it rocks, but no GPS solution that’s useless when you get lost in the sticks without having a route pre-mapped is worthwhile to me.