Friday, March 19, 2010

8. GPS Navigation

Several years ago I bought a standard Garmin GPS device to use in my car. At the time I was working for a company that required I practically lived out of my car, so it seemed a good investment. Despite all the ads and opinions that a GPS device is only good for a year (Its true I know of at least 3 people who buy a new GPS device EVERY year. This is due to the fact that the map updates are almost as expensive as the GPS device itself. You can buy a GPS device for a little over 100.00, and map updates are anywhere from 50-100.00.) this GPS device has lasted several years and is continuing to run perfect.

I have wanted to buy Terra a new GPS for awhile. She doesn't have one and there have been times that it would have been very helpful to her. As I thought about it I decided to look into the idea of using some software on my Iphone to act as my GPS device and give Terra my old GPS. As I struck out onto the internet reviewing different apps the two that I thought would be the best were Tom Tom and AT&T Navigator. They were the most expensive, both costing a little over 50-60 dollars, they both came from "reputable and established" companies, and supposedly had the most stable operating platforms out there. All of this I found out from the official websites for the app or off the app description page. Imagine my surprise when I started reading the reviews. They were horrible for both systems! Both apps seemed to be riddled with problems.

Now I was at a loss because I really didn't know where to look. Anyone who has ever been on the Apple App Store knows there are tons of apps for almost any subject. Trying to go through all of them can be a somewhat daunting task. So to help me I decided opinion of others mattered and I looked at the top 10 most downloaded navigation apps. The number one App was called Motion X and cost .99 cents. I looked at the description and the App was a basic GPS turn by turn navigation software. The software would work for just the .99 cents but if you wanted voice prompts and traffic you needed to pay a 20.00 annual fee. This seemed to good to be true, so I jumped to the reviews. I was stunned when I found that EVERY SINGLE review was a 5 start positive rating! That decided it. I quickly bought the app paid the 20.00 and Terra and I jumped into the car to go out. As we were driving I had my "new" GPS take us to our location and it worked like a charm. Anyone with the Iphone should seriously consider this App!

2 comments: