In this edition of the Living In The Clouds Series, I am going to talk about the newly released Mapquest Navigator, the iPhone voice guided navigation system released by Mapquest. Actually, I should title the post as Driving with the Clouds but, anyhow, this deserves to belong to this series. I have been using it for just a day but I somehow like this app more than any other iPhone navigation apps I have used in the past.
This iPhone app is different from some other navigation apps. It is not one huge 700 MB app storing the data on your iPhone. It is more like Google maps in that sense, tapping the clouds for the data. However, it downloads the entire route when you start routing your travel. This helps to make the navigation app work even when there is no wireless signal. Its sleek 3D interface offers voice guided turn by turn navigation including street names.
As it is customary in this series, I will add a video of the app below
As I usually do in this series, I will list out the pros and cons from my point of view.
Pros:
- The best thing I like about the app was the pricing model. It is more service based pricing in tune with the cloud apps than a product based pricing. I could pay a month by month subscription of $3.99 or a yearly subscription of $29.99. I would rather pay this than paying 100 bucks for those bulky apps with data stored locally.
- I like their carousal based single tap options to find places like a coffee shop, restaurant, hospitals, grocery stores, gas stations, etc.. It is much easier to manage on the go than the ones based on iPhone like UI.
- Traffic and incident based rerouting is very useful.
- The fact that the app’s data is stored in the cloud means we always have updated data without any worry to update the app.
Cons:
- The very fact that the data is based on the cloud means we cannot find directions to a point outside the downloaded route corridor when there is no wireless coverage.
- Coverage is restricted to US and Canada.
- Not sure if it is something to do with my handset but the response is a bit slower while trying to tap certain places of interests.
Overall, I like the app and the biggest motivation for me to try the app is their subscription based pricing. I don’t want to pay 100 bucks for a voice guided navigation app.
