Comments on: Navigon iPhone Satellite Navigation App Review

By: iPhone 3GS Review by Oak Innovations Blog

iPhone 3GS Review by Oak Innovations Blog — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 18:30:19 +0000

[...] the Google Map app seems to think I’m driving in a crabbing fashion along the road. The Navigon app exhibits no such problems, and also succeeds in keeping the phone cooler in use and actually uses [...]

By: Northerner

Northerner — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 01:11:21 +0000

Agree with your findings. In summary, the MAJOR failings for me are:

1. Audio is INAUDIBLE in a moving car even at low speed and radios off etc, with the iPhone at maximum volume,

2. No background running so you have to wait for the program to do a FULL restart after an incoming phone call

3. Single status display shows speed OR time to destination OR distance remaining – despite there being acres of space of the screen to show all 3.

4. Music played through iPhone isn’t faded during voice prompts resulting in an unintelligble distorted mess. Also means cannot be used as music source though car stereo or amp – which surely is a common use for cars with an iPod dock?.

5. What SatNav program these days can’t navigate to post codes? Just this one!

6. No POI imports and provided POIs are minimal and well out of date.

7. No speedcam or traffic facilities

£40 or £60? IMO this should have been a free beta, it is that unusable in practice!

By: Simon

Simon — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 21:10:31 +0000

Sorry Brett, it seems to be working ok for me using that link. Are you in the UK? It does point to the UK store.

Lars, you’re spot on about the arrival time/distance/speed, I guess it’s a failure of the interface that it needs to be pointed out like that (I wrongly assumed that touching anywhere on the screen switched to top-down view, this may have been the result of inaccurate clicking in the car). And the intermediate stops is very useful for chaining destinations.

By: Lars Lindberg

Lars Lindberg — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 07:50:34 +0000

I bought the app and have used it for a couple of days on my 3G with the Nordic maps.

Click on the arrival time to get remaining distance and the current speed. The current speed limit is always displayed in the upper right corner of the map IF they have the information available.

I would also like to point out the feature with intermediate stops which are handled elegantely.

The Nordic maps also are a bit sparse
on POI. I was hoping that the tourists POI could help us to find some nice seeings, but no.

By: Brett

Brett — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 02:38:28 +0000

When selecting the link for the app, it takes me to iTunes but then says request cannot be completed. Any ideas? The only navigon app available by search is the full European version.

By: Simon

Simon — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 23:30:30 +0000

James – Unfortunately not. This would be another reason why allowing custom POIs would be a good idea. At the moment all you get is speed warning based on the limit of the road, not whether there’s a speed camera there or not.

By: James

James — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:33:12 +0000

Are there speed camera or safety camera details included?