Google's Turn by Turn Navigation comes to UK

[gav28]

I just used it today with my HTC Desire. I must say, it just works, even better it has real-time traffic update information as well. You can see where the holds-up are going to be, the estimated time of arrival is also spot on.

Considering it is free, I would think the likes of TomTom et co are rather concerned!!

[MaFt]

[MarkBR]

[quote="MaFt
personally i doubt it. there are too many issues in my opinion:

search: searching for an address, i found, was quite fiddly - i'd much prefer to be able to enter details one line at a time instead of writing out the whole address to search for.

MaFt[/quote]

Personally I had the opposite experience. I tried the voice input option - spoke "Brent Cross Shopping Centre" to it (admittedly "Brent Cross" failed to work!) - and it pretty quickly came up with a list of shops at Brent Cross to choose one as a destination. Very neat!

Although the directions are spoken in a rather robotic voice, they do speak the actual road names (and numbers where appropriate) which is more of a "high end" feature of sat navs. Not having this on my older Tom Tom, I do appreciate the extra information and not having to look at the sat nav screen so often.

It also has traffic information, although I still can't find out where the data is sourced. It apparently doesn't re-calculate based on traffic, which would be nice.

I haven't had signal problems in my limited use so far, but at least the whole journey is at least cached at the start, so as long as you don't stray far from the original route ...

I do wish though that the Speed Camera data could be incorporated into the 'Layers' feature, as that (for me) is the single biggest issue in using it in anger. Can anyone here make it work?!

MarkBR

[Peter_O]

I've recently acquired the HTC Desire and have to say I'm bowled over by it. It's just an amazing device that keeps doing stuff far better than I might have imagined possible, without having to constantly refer to manuals.

We have a Garmin Nuvi 300T and the maps need an update, but frankly I could buy a new sat-nav for less (I know, I exagerate) so I feel a little agrieved about it.

Thought I'd try the Google Maps/Navigation.. Wow! It's amazing too. The speaker on the Desire is bit weedy and turning on the GPS makes the battery state/icon mimic my fuel gauge! ;-) Needs a proper mounting, constant power and probably needs hooking up to the car audio to be really useful.

I'm using EZCam for camera alerts linked to SpeedCameraPOI. Seems to work(ish), doesn't seem to be very directional, often warns you of cameras on nearby roads - suddenly seeing a 30MPH warning on a 70MPH road is er, disturbing! EZCam has some really really childish sounds/alerts, the sorts of irritating stuff that you hear in a small childs electronic toy. Can't see how to change the sounds, you can adjust volume only.

Anyway, allegedly EZCam can work with PocketGPSWorld data - but I haven't seen how yet. If anyone knows of a guide for this, please point me at it. (Which is why I'm here really...)

Cheers
Peter
PS. EZCam costs only £1.99 from the Android Market. Given the cost, I can forgive its annoying sounds! ;-)

[Peter_O]

Of course, if you look for EZCam, rather than your phone, it's plainly obvious what you do! ;-)

Cheers
Peter

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