The ideal Navigation Apps [Appbattle]

One moment it’s a phone on your hand. The following, it’s a whole-fledged turn-by-turn nav unit with an active internet connection. What happened? These apps, is what.

iOS

GOLD MEDAL: MotionX Drive

The first wave of iPhone turn-by-turn apps was expensive and sumptuous. The second was cheap and barebones. Since, members of both classes have scrambled for the best balance: Relatively cheap and pleasant, or in any case painless, to exploit. MotionX Drive is an effective turn-by-turn app at almost any price, but at $26 ($1 + $25 yearly subscription) it’s basically a steal. Occasional road-trippers should buy a month of service for just $3, as many or few times as they please. $1, iPhone and iPad (for $3)

SILVER MEDAL: Navigon

Initially considered a premium nav app, Navigon commenced competing against the likes of TomTom. Now, with new region-specific pricing, it’s within the trenches with the MotionX Drives and CoPilots of the arena. And it fares well! Unlike many others, its maps are stored locally, so navigation still works in no-signal zones. (This also makes the app huge.) From $20 (Eastern states) to $50 (entire US) , iPhone

BRONZE MEDAL: MapQuest 4 Mobile

It’s missing a number of the features standard in most turn-by-turn apps, like a street-level view and traffic data. But! Huuuuuge but! It’s free, and it does basic, dependable voice navigation, that is 90% of the battle with these apps. It’s no Google Maps Navigation , nevertheless it’s awfully close. Free, iPhone

Android

GOLD MEDAL: Google Maps Navigation

Did you predict anything? It’s turn-by-turn navigation made by Google and more importantly, an element of Google Maps. You get live traffic data, location bookmarks, satellite view, search along route and Google’s killer Street View. Plus its powered by, duh, Google Search and has your entire googley features you’ve come to expect like voice search and needless to say, being free. The one downside is that its navigation is sorta dependent for your data connection in preference to being preloaded (though it does cache your route) and the GPS voice is extremely robotic (but it surely does do text to speech). Free, Android.

SILVER MEDAL: CoPilot Live

It’s not free, but you just ought to pay a one time fee of $20 that’s significantly cheaper than similarly capable GPS navigation apps. Plus, CoPilot’s GPS voice is basically sorta pleasant, POI search is wise and you get 3D and 2D maps (though the disadvantage is they’re not particularly attractive). In case you do quite a few driving in areas where cellular phone signal isn’t great, paying 20 bucks for CoPilot isn’t a nasty option since maps are preloaded onto your SD card. $19.99, Android.

BRONZE MEDAL: Waze

Waze uses user-generated maps which aren’t always perfect, however’s free and turns navigation into a ” social” game where you will see other Waze users on the road and earn points by hitting landmarks. Not useful enough to be a whole time GPS but fun enough for those times where driving gets boring. Free, Android.

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This post is tagged: data location, eastern states, google search, killer street, satellite view, street level view, voice navigation