Cloudy Days and Connected Nights

CoPilot Live 8

[Please see the updated take on Nav apps here to see why my opinion on CoPilot has changed.]

Just a quick note to say that CoPilot just released an update that, most noticeably, adds iPod controls within the app.

They are also saying improved GPS performance…but I never noticed any lack in that area in the previous version.

One thing I did note is that computer text to speech voice now says three tents of a mile instead of point three miles…the point often got swallowed in the previous version. It is now crystal clear.

The iPod controls are handy…but they promise auto-muting during voice instructions in the next update. That will actually make it work.

It is good to see that the CoPilot folks are keeping up their end. They are certainly on track to be the last paid alternative navigation app standing when Google Navigation blows everything else off the iPhone. After all, a few of us will still want on device maps…especially if Apple sticks with AT&T. CoPilot, on the basis of cost and a growing feature set, is the navigation app to own.

For the full review see CoPilot Live 8.

CoPilot Live 8

[Please see the updated take on Nav apps here to see why CoPilot is still my pick for the best resident map Nav App on the iPhone.]

Okay, I admit it. I am an app junkie. Apparently I can not stop with one of any kind of app. I was happy with Navigon’s Mobile Navigator for iPhone (see Navigon Update and Navigon Review). It worked. It worked well. It still works well. It is just that I read this little piece on the upgraded versions of the other Nav apps out there, and got, you know, to wondering.

CoPilot, according to this little piece, just added text to speach, making it the second app with that feature. And, CoPilot has thing called CoPilot Live, which includes live map updates based on new data and user feedback on the existing maps, the ability to display a 5 day weather report for your destination, an add-on (costs extra) for real time traffic, and something that shares locations with friends. But what hooked me was when I read that you could enter a waypoint (intermediate stop) by just tapping the map. That was a feature I had just been thinking, on my last trip, that I really wished Navigon could do.

Choose destination by touching map!

Given that CoPilot Live 8 sells for $34.95, or about 1/3 the price of Navigon or TomTom, I, you know, got to wondering if it was maybe worth a try. Just for research. You know. To find out if it was any good. At the least I would get a review out of it, right?

So I bought it. That’s what app junkies do. I have about 130 apps in the green pastures of my iTunes library. I have maybe 30 of them on my iPhone. Still, you get the benefit, gentle readers, of my disorder. As in this review of CoPilot Live 8 for iPhone!

First, the most noticable difference between Navigon and CoPilot, at least on my 3G iPhone, is one word: SPEED! Sure CoPilot launches faster (a whole lot faster) and it finds its initial location faster too, and it maps your route faster as well…but the real difference is in the menu works…touching a button or choice in Navigon always left me wondering it I hit it right, because there was noticeable lag every time you tried to do anything. Typing text the whole program hung between letters, and it took seconds for the list of anything to fill (states, towns, restaurants, etc.) Not fatal. Just annoying. (Well, maybe fatal if you tried to do anything while driving too often.) I was living with it. CoPilot on the other hand almost seems to anticipate your touch and start to do whatever you wanted before you get your finger off the screen. Shucks, it is often completely done doing whatever you asked it to do before you get our finger off the screen. Fast? I’d say fast. And this on a 3G.

Touch a POI and you get options

It does everything that Navigon does except for display the speed limits and traffic signs and provide lane assist (interestingly the European versions of CoPilot do these things as well…so there is hope NA will get these features in an upgrade somewhere down the line). Oh yeah, and the text to speech voice is not nearly as sexy as the Navigon voice, but maybe they will fix that too. (CoPilot does offer other voice choices, equally as sexy as the single voice on the Navigon, but only the Frank Computer voice does text to speech.) On the other hand, CoPilot Live  does a whole lot of things Navigon does not do.

There is that touch the map to enter a destination thing. That is so cool, and so useful. Then there is the touch a Point of Interest and a pop-up appears with the name, location, and the option to either go to or, get this, call! thing. How cool is that? There is the ability to search for Points of Interest not only buy picking them from a list centered on whatever location you specify, be it right

Options for entering destinations

near by or a far away city…but by tying the name directly. Ever try to find a Subway in a strange city on most Nav devices or apps? This thing is as good as Google maps or Yelp at locating just exactly what you are after. Actually better than Yelp since it will display a map with your choices displayed and represented by numbers. There is also a very easy touch button to show you Points of Interest along your route you might want to visit. (Navigon can do this too…but it is not nearly as easy or as intuitive.)

I am actually discovering more features that I really like as I use the app more. For instance, I just found on a recent trip that when you reach a destination, you get a pop-up asking if you want to return to your starting point or program a new destination. Way to go! I don’t know how often I have gotten back in the car and thought “boy, I wish I could just tell this GPS to take me back where I started.” On most apps and stand alone units you have to manually enter the address, or, at the very least,  go to your recents and choose it from there. You can also access the return route in CoPilot through the Edit Route menu.

And, while the Frank Computer voice may not be sexy, the text to speech instructions are the best I have yet encountered. Frank remarks on confusing sharp bends in your current path, guides you on and off ramps (with next turn instructions where needed), and provides route names in a manner that simply inspires confidence. He may be a computer, but he is a vastly considerate computer…and knows just what you need to hear.

And did I say CoPilot does all of this fast? I think I did.

CoPilot Live also provides a much greater range of customization than Navigon: for screen display, map display, Point of Interest display, routing options, etc. etc.

Lots of POI choices

Strangely it also has the ability to save and reload a route. I have never seen that before.

The menu system is several screens deep, but very intuitive. I figured most of this stuff out just playing with it so far.

If you have noticed a, shall we say, playful tone to this review, it is intentional, and inspired by the app itself.  The maps are somewhat cartoony…crayon bright and colorful…not objectionably so…but enough to give me a this is fun impression while viewing them. I have no idea if this was intentional on the part of the programmers, but to me, it is a theme that runs through the whole program…from the funky maps to the (can it be intentionally) funky computer voice for text to speech, to the Live features that include social sharing, to the jazzy menu layout and screen navigation controls…this app just gives  me a fun feeling. Navigon is very capable and serious, fully competent to get you where you are going. CoPilot Live is fun, and seems to assume that you might want to have some fun along the way to where you are going.

Fun maps

Just my impression. Call me crazy.

Of course, it is not all fun. I have found some minor mapping inaccuracies around my native patch. At least one short by-pass that  is not on the map, street number offsets, and it does fail on my GPS/Mapping program worse case test: 53 Depot Street, Freeport, ME. (Most map apps, including Google Maps, put 53 at the wrong end of Depot Street altogether, something I found out the hard way when trying to make it to my daughter’s recital one memorable day.) On a recent lengthy trip down the Atlantic coast from Jekyll Island GA to Boynton Beach FL and back to Jacksonville the next day (6 hours each way) on I95, it gave me  two instructions to stay on 95 while the secondary route number (407 in GA, and 9 in FL) “split off”. It evidently thought that the change in route number meant the other route went somewhere 95 didn’t. In neither case was there an exit when Frank said “now stay on 95″. The first time was actually in the middle of the river separating GA and FL. Good thing I have more sense than my iPhone.

As with any GPS app or device, on long trips I would advise checking the route before you start driving, checking your destination to make sure it is where you really want to go (easy in CoPilot since you can see the route on a map and zoom in at the destination end, or see a turn list), and maybe using another mapping service (Google, MapQuest) to verify. It is easy on the iPhone. Google Maps is right there, and MapQuest is a free download.

That said, and duly warned, at $34.95 CoPilot Live 8 is simply a steal. By far the least expensive turn by turn nav app on the store. And yet it is certainly among the best, if not the best overall. I will continue to give it a through workout over the next months of travel and report back on any issues I find, but so far, I like this app!

I like it so much it makes it hard to go back to sluggish, stodgy old Navigon. In fact, I took Navigon off my iPhone (to free up more memory for apps, of course!) and retired it to the green pastures of my iTunes Library.

Check out the CoPilot Live website.

Or view CoPilot Live on the iPhone app store.

Also note this from the CoPilot Live site:

Update coming soon:

• In-app purchases for premium Live services
• Access to iPod controls and playlists from CoPilot
• Additional GPS performance improvements
• User control to dim or switch-off music during voice instructions
• Further enhancements based on customer feedback

Better and better. Each one of these features will be most welcome, thank you. Especially the iPod controls and music interruption during voice instructions! And “further enhancements based on customer feedback”…now there is a phrase to conjure with.

Like I said. I am liking this app!

Navigon hit the ground running, so to speak, with the first turn-by-turn gps app for the iPhone with built in maps for all of North America. My impressions of the app are here, and have only changed for the better with the two updates they have released so far.

The first update gave us the ability to add interim destinations to routes…which actually sounds better than it is…since you still have to add the destinations using the text interface. What we need is the ability to add destination by touching the map…or to change a route by dragging. It also added the ability to set the volume of the app independently from the music player…which is good if you use the iPod app while navigating.

Update two only offers two new features but they are killers. You now have a full set of iPod controls within the app…so you don’t have to boot out to select a new album or playlist, for instance. Nice. Convenient.

But the really improvement (and a first for GPS on the iPhone)  is text-to-speech prompts. Mobile Nav now reads out the street and route names for (just about) every turn. She has a new voice too…on the NA version, slightly less British (way less plummy), and, to my ear, a bit easer to understand. The app does a very good job with English pronunciation, getting close enough to avoid most misunderstandings. And the readings are seamless…you don’t hear any switch from recorded prompts to text-to-speech.

I did notice that on close spaced turns where they are not linked in the data base, on my slower 3G phone, the text-to-speech prompt sometimes comes a second late…but it is there.

So…I continue to be impressed and delighted with the app. I have used it more extensively now, and, except for sending me on a road that I would not have chosen myself in Cape Elizabeth ME, it has not let me down. Highly recommended if you want to use your iPhone as your GPS for travel.

Mobile Navigator for iPhone

Let’s face it, $69 ($99 after August 15) is a lot to pay for an iPhone app. We are pretty well conditioned to think of a $6.99 app as expensive…when we pay $4.99 we expect something really special, relatively unique, and totally awesome, $2.99 is a bread and butter app, and we really think all apps should be $.99!

And, I have to say, my most expensive app before the Navigon was the $29.99 iBird Explorer Pro…a totally unique, completely awesome, library sized compendium of bird information wedded to super audio-visual field guide and innovative bird id search engine, all compressed into an elegant iPhone interface…that has served (in the Apple TV adds) as a poster child for what is possible on the iPhone/iPod Touch platform. Of course, I am a birder as well as technophile (polite for geek), so for me, price is no object for an app like iBird Explorer.

But then, I am also a traveler. 300,000 air miles a year, traveling to destinations all over North America, and generally having a 1 to 6 hour drive out of the airport (always conveniently located at the center of an urban traffic snarl) to where ever I am actually going (long story and not the place to tell it). I bought my first GPS, a Magellan Crossover, 4 years ago and it simplified and destressed my travel life to such an extent that I would never willingly travel without one again. I even use it on any drive over 2 hours around home…just to have the distance to the next turn and ETA available. Anything, as far as I am concerned, that removes stress from travel is worth owning and using!

The Magellan is still going strong, and the only reason I have been avidly waiting a turn by turn, audible GPS app for the iPhone ever since the possibility was announced with OS 3.0 (and I have been eager) is that I travel 300,000 miles a year by air. The less I have to carry…the fewer gadgets…one less power supply (2 less counting the auto adapter) can make a real difference…not huge…but real, and with that much travel, any difference at all is worth a reasonable price.

So what is reasonable? To put things in perspective, I paid more for my Magellan Crossroads (at employee price through a friend in the company) than I paid for my iPhone (by quite a bit) and I paid more for the last Magellan map update than Navigon is asking for the complete Mobile Navigator app. So even $99 is not looking unreasonable to me.

Of course the GPS market has changed dramatically in the past 4 years too. Today you can buy a GPS at least as good as my Magellan for less than $150, $129 on occasional discounts…even sometimes the most basic models at  $99 on a holiday sale. That is making the Navigon app look expensive again…if…and for me it is a big if…you are willing to carry a second device for navigation. That is, if you remember, how I got here in the first place.

One cravat in what follows. My only GPS reference for comparison to the Navigon app is my 4 year old Magellan, state of the art at the time, but it is quite possible that many of the features that so impressed me in the Navigon are now common place in even an entry level GPS…I wouldn’t know. I am sure some reader will be at pains to tell me if this is so.

And, yes, I am indeed impressed with the Mobile Navigator for the iPhone. Impressed and happy. Tested on an extensive road trip out of a midwestern airport from one city to the far side of  a smaller city 2 hours west and into deep industrial suburbia, it performed flawlessly and delighted me with its many intelligent aids to navigation, ease of use, and accuracy. As far as I am concerned it is worth every penny of the $99, and more.

It has only one quirk that I noticed…it is not as fast in set up as it might be due to operational delays…lags between touching a button and the action called mostly. This is on a 3G iPhone. I suspect that performance is snappier on a 3GS (bound to be, and if someone wants to donate one I will be happy to test it), but this is still a massively complex piece of programing for the tiny iPhone processor to handle, especially while part of its little mind is tending to Apple’s apps that are allowed background operations (mail, SMS, iPod, and now any app that uses Push).

What impressed me?

Options Screen

1) General accuracy. After TomTom’s take on the abilities of the built in iPhone GPS (they will provide an optional booster unit/car mount with their app), I had to wonder if the iPhone was up to the task unaided. It is. No problem. It acquired an initial position faster than my Magellan by far (probably because it cheats and takes a ball-park position from the cell system), and it never lost tract of where it was no matter how dense the city around it. (I have not, you understand, tested it in NYC, LA, Chicago, or Boston…) Turn info was timely and spot on.

2) An intelligent and very usable 3D mode. I never used 3D on the Magellan because it made me a little queasy to watch it, but the Navigon worked fine, perhaps because of the possibility of using the iPhone in Portrait mode with the screen long and thin, giving the 3D effect room to stretch out ahead of the little moving arrow (note: current version does not display street names on the map in 3D. Update with name display, and a few other refinements, promised soon).

Perhaps the best feature of the 3D view is the lane assist at major intersections (especially on interstates). As you approach a junction, the view shifts to a stylized depiction of the actual lane layout, looking from your position down the lanes ahead, with the traffic signs hanging over the lanes just as you see them in real time through the windshield, and bright orange arrows following the lanes showing your flow through the junction. If there are two possible lanes of exit, it shows two arrows: If only one, then only one arrow. It is simple, elegant, and effective. (see the illustration above)

3) Along the same lines, the Navigon both tells and displays multiple turns. When you exit a freeway, for instance, if the exit is to the right and then you have to turn right off the exit, it gives you an audible instruction, and it displays the second turn in a smaller turn box above the first turn box. I hated that about the Magellan. It never told what the next turn was until you completed the first, even when they followed close on each other.

4) Posted speed limit display and audible speeding waring. On any major highway (even on Route 1 through downtown Kennebunk ME (population 20,000)) a little speed sign in the upper right corner of the screen displays the posted speed limit. It is very accurate and changes when the posted limits change. You can set the app to different levels of alert, but a pleasant voice cautions you when you are too far in excess of the limit.

Route Profile

5) The ability to tailor the route profile that builds your route in any number of interesting and useful ways. You want to walk or take a bike?…Navigon has you covered. Do you want to include residential only streets (often the best shortcuts, known only to true locals) or exclude them. Do you want to allow or avoid toll roads, or outlaw them outright? More

POIs

6) An excellent POI system that provided accurate lists of local every things…even including, where appropriate, corporate logos (Burger Kings are shown in the list with their logo…MickyDs…Staples stores…WalMarts…etc.) As a stranger in a lot of strange cities with general business (eating, shopping, mailing, parking, auto renting, occasional medical emergencies, etc.) I am really dependent on the POI system. I am sure I am going to discover the limits of the Navigon POIs. As much as I travel I always do, but so far I am impressed.

7) Ease of address entry. Multiple taps and multiple inputs of course, but each tap and each input calls up an indexed list of possible locations, including all major intersections. I have always wondered why GPS apps don’t work like Google maps, and let you type in the whole address and then go find it, but given that failing, the Navigon system works well (again, on the 3G iPhone there can be lags as Navigon builds the lists. Probably better on the 3GS…any donors yet?)

The Navigon app is also integrated with your address book/contacts app on the iPhone, so you can enter the full address there, and then call it up from within the navigation app. Just be careful entering data in your contacts app. I made a simple mistake, and it cost me 15 minutes on the way to an appointment. User error.

8 ) a feature that looks good, but that I have not used yet, is the ability to look for POIs along your route (restaurants, gas stations, rest areas, etc.) while the route is running, and add them to your route. I can see how, on longer trips than 2 hours, this might be very useful.

Along those lines, the next update is supposed to have the ability to route multiple destinations. This is something I have always missed in my Magellan. Sometimes I want to go by way of, but I still want to go, if you know what I mean. I do not want to go to the by the way, and then have to reprogram the GPS for my true destination. And if there is more than one by the way, well…that gets tedious. I don’t know how often I will actually use the multiple destinations feature, but I am eager to see how it works.

So, what about the practical side of using the app on the iPhone. It is after all a phone. And it is, after all, an iPhone. What happens when calls come in. What happens when Pushes interrupt your route? What about iPoding? How do you mount the thing?

Phone and Push seems well integrated. If a phone call comes in, you can answer it using the speaker phone mode and navigation picks up where you are when you finish. If you are anywhere tricky, of course, the best course is to get off the road to talk anyway. Pushes appear in the screen, but have a dismiss button, so that is easy. You can play music using the iPod app while navigation is running, but see the volume concern below.

As for mounting, I am using an inexpensive,l $25 windshield suction mount from Walmart, and it works just fine. It even came with a heater vent adapter for CA cars (no window mounts allowed). I also have a Kensington mount that goes in the lighter socket for cars with sockets appropriately placed. The iPhone is light compared to my Magellan, so it is relatively easy to mount. The suction on my inexpensive windshield mount held for 3 days and showed no signs of coming loose. I used a separate lighter powered power supply, and the phone was well positioned for speaker phone use if needed. Works.

Navigon recommends running your iPhone naked for best GPS reception but I kept mine in its plastic case and it worked fine.

So what is not to like?

My only issue is, as other reviewers have noted, the voice prompts. The voice is pleasant, polite, clear and crisp and unlikely to be  misunderstood…but it is not loud enough, especially if you are listening to music. The coming update will have separate volume controls for music and voice…but unless they also boost the volume of the voice in the navigation app, that just means that you will be turning your music down to hear the navigation better. Not ideal. (With the 3G, she also stutters occasionally…not enough to bother…probably cured in the 3GS…what, still no donors? I really want to test this.)

To be fair, you need to compare the Navigon Mobile Navigator for the iPhone to the AT&T navigation app, and the X-Road apps…and of course the soon to be released TomTom app (the TomTom has been soon to be released for several months now, which is certainly one reason I have the Navigon.)

I don’t want to pay AT&T $9.99 a month to use their app, no matter how good it is, and early reports have not been wildly enthusiastic. Even if map upgrades for the Navigon are expensive, they are not going to $120, and they are not likely to come every year. I prefer an app that has the maps installed. The X-Road apps might be good, but since I am all over NA, I would have to own and install both East and West…not an ideal solution as far as I am concerned, and putting the cost right up there with the Navigon.

And the TomTom? I don’t like the idea of the separate booster…one more thing to carry and power…and, having used the Navigon without a booster, I am not sure it is needed. TomTom would have to have a significant price or feature advantage to make me look at it (unlikely in my opinion). (Of course, if TomTom wants me to review their app, I am always open to that…though I bought the Navigon with my own hard earned $$…you think all that travel is easy on a person?)

For the moment, I am certainly a happy Navigon Mobile Navigator for the iPhone user. Great app. Good use of the iPhone interface. Works well. Eliminates one gadget from my packing. Win win win, and one more win.

I am happy. And I am especially happy to have gotten the Navigon at its introductory price of $69. Go get yours before August 15th and save yourself some cash.