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iGo Navigation is horrible

B

bbplayer5

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Apr 13, 2007
3,133
1,141
Everything BUT the navigation on this app is great. My main issue is this.. It almost appears like the app takes too long to ask the satellite where you are. This results in hesitation and jumping no matter how clear your signal is. The program just has no clue where you are and basically guesses where you should be based on your last speed. This poses a problem at every stop sign, stop light, traffic obstruction, etc etc...


This app FAILS.


Next ill take a look at TomTom. So far Navigon is spot on and only once in a while ghosts about 20 feet, but quickly corrects.
 
bbplayer5 said:
Everything BUT the navigation on this app is great. My main issue is this.. It almost appears like the app takes too long to ask the satellite where you are. This results in hesitation and jumping no matter how clear your signal is. The program just has no clue where you are and basically guesses where you should be based on your last speed. This poses a problem at every stop sign, stop light, traffic obstruction, etc etc...


Next ill take a look at TomTom. So far Navigon is spot on and only once in a while ghosts about 20 feet, but quickly corrects.
Click to expand...
Diasgree compltely. My experience has been quite the opposite. I've not had a problem with hesitation, jumping or anything of the sort.

The one thing I really like about IGo is that it puts a very small dot on the map indicating the exact position of the location reported by the GPS. You can see exactly where the GPS chip reported you to be in relation to the roadway. IGo and other GPS packages 'snap' you to the nearest roadway.

Watching this you can see that the phone itself only reports the GPS position every second or so and thus the software has to try an interpolate what your location actually is. You say it's the software asking the phone for GPS coordinates, but it's actually the phone reporting the GPS coordinates. This is inherent to the iPhone and isn't a problem with the nav package. I've seen jumps on Google maps, too.

Since there is a delay, Navigon took the approach of trying to predict where your actual position is by advancing the icon ahead of the reported one in an attempt to make it seem smoother and mask the problem. IGo chose to simply show what's being reported. Both are probably fine for navigation purposes.

I've done a handful of routes including some in varied terrain - city, open country and mountains. The only time I had an issue with IGo is when I was up against the side of a mountain. I lose satellite radio too in the same location and it re-acquired the signal quickly (within a couple of seconds).
 
FearlessFreep said:
Diasgree compltely. My experience has been quite the opposite. I've not had a problem with hesitation, jumping or anything of the sort.

The one thing I really like about IGo is that it puts a very small dot on the map indicating the exact position of the location reported by the GPS. You can see exactly where the GPS chip reported you to be in relation to the roadway. IGo and other GPS packages 'snap' you to the nearest roadway.

Watching this you can see that the phone itself only reports the GPS position every second or so and thus the software has to try an interpolate what your location actually is. You say it's the software asking the phone for GPS coordinates, but it's actually the phone reporting the GPS coordinates. This is inherent to the iPhone and isn't a problem with the nav package. I've seen jumps on Google maps, too.

Since there is a delay, Navigon took the approach of trying to predict where your actual position is by advancing the icon ahead of the reported one in an attempt to make it seem smoother and mask the problem. IGo chose to simply show what's being reported. Both are probably fine for navigation purposes.

I've done a handful of routes including some in varied terrain - city, open country and mountains. The only time I had an issue with IGo is when I was up against the side of a mountain. I lose satellite radio too in the same location and it re-acquired the signal quickly (within a couple of seconds).
Click to expand...


First of all, the jumping around on the iGo software is it trying to predict where I am. When I stop at a light, it keeps right on going through the intersection on the screen. A few seconds later it snaps back. Navigon does not do this, and knows exactly when I stop and never overshoots a light.

iGo imo needs a lot of work on its predictive navigation software.

And no, they are both NOT fine for navigation purposes. I took a route that ive never taken before across town. I was missing turns left and right because the arrow on the screen wasnt in the right place. It would tell me to turn... id turn... then it would recalculate because I turned a block too soon/late.

Its just not good. Navigon on the other hand was 100% perfect with predicting where I was on the return trip. Now if Navigon would make street names more legible...
 
bbplayer5 said:
First of all, the jumping around on the iGo software is it trying to predict where I am. When I stop at a light, it keeps right on going through the intersection on the screen.
Click to expand...
iGo has never done this to me.

bbplayer5 said:
Its just not good. Navigon on the other hand was 100% perfect with predicting where I was on the return trip.
Click to expand...
And I think iGo is excellent - and apparently so do many of the reviewers in the App Store. To each his own and it obviously didn't work for you. I'm not certain why if Navigon was working for you that you felt the need to burn $80 on iGo?

Again, I've never had the running intersection/jumping issue at all - all I can tell is what I've experienced - your experience has obviously been different.
 
I'll go IGO

I've not had any of the issues mentioned in previous posts.

I've always had TomTom's, be it on mobile devises or in my cars.

I've got to say I'm really impressed with Igo, yeah there is room for improvement but you can say that with most apps these days.

Would Igo My Way replace my stand alone Tomtom unit? Yes it would.

All the best guys


Beef
 
iGo works perfect.
Navigates very well. I don't seem to loose the Satellite connection as mentioned. POI's are a bit choppy though.
There's no comparison between igo/navigon and TomTom
igo and navigon use navteq maps which are far more superior than teleatalas which is used by TomTom which is a piece of junk IMO. I've had tomtom for years before I switched to intellinav which uses navteq maps.

So back to the point, I lean towards using igo over navigon. I'll finally settle for that app that can do traffic nav well.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_0_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7A400 Safari/528.16)

I'm impressed with igo as well. I've had many car units and this works awesome. Navteq is definitely superior to teleatlas.
 
iGO is the forgotten nav app. It is very well done with a lot of attention to details. It has to me unquestionably the best UI of all of the GPS apps. Its POI searching is vastly superior to Navigon's in that you don't have to have the exact city correct in order to find what you're looking for. It uses the Navteq maps and POIs, which are greatly superior to TeleAtlas for North America. iPod controls and TTS, traffic, contact integration are all coming in future updates. Plus map updates are quarterly and FREE through Dec. 2010.
 
I'm not sure why iGo has slipped through the cracks. It seems every mainstream review roundup of GPS apps fails to include it. It has the cleanest and most polished navigation display I've seen and the street name bubbles blow away everything else. However, there are two gripes I have with it:

1. There is an inherit GPS lag with the iPhone which is obvious when using the iGo. However, Navigon is the only GPS app that actually uses predictive programming to mask this lag.

2. It seems to occasionally crash at startup. I've seen this complaint on a bunch of iTunes reviews, so I would expect that to be fixed in the first update.
 
I love iGo too, but it has one fatal flaw, at least for me: It doesn't display the POI's on the map as you are driving along a route. A couple times it showed a gas station icon, but thats it. Navigon shows me all kinds of POI icons, which is great when driving through an unfamiliar town looking for a bank, resturant, etc. I think this is a real deal breaker for me, as I might be trying to get a refund. I asked the iGO support about this, and all they said was that it was not a planned feature.
Other than that though, I love iGO.
 
fasttech said:
I love iGo too, but it has one fatal flaw, at least for me: It doesn't display the POI's on the map as you are driving along a route. A couple times it showed a gas station icon, but thats it. Navigon shows me all kinds of POI icons, which is great when driving through an unfamiliar town looking for a bank, resturant, etc. I think this is a real deal breaker for me, as I might be trying to get a refund. I asked the iGO support about this, and all they said was that it was not a planned feature.
Other than that though, I love iGO.
Click to expand...
A refund for what? Because it doesn't have a feature that it never was advertised to have? Did I miss something - is the app store policy now "refund if you don't like the app?"

Navigon suffers from a different kind of flaw - you often can't find a POI through the search. Are you going to get a refund for that, too?
 
No, the pictures they show have POI's on the screen. But in reality all they show are maybe a gas station. Maybe I was assuming they would have the POI's like Navigon has, since they show a couple in their pictures. Just in reality there aren't nearly as many of them shown as Navigon.
Don't get me wrong, I love iGO, but I don't know why they don't show the POI's on the map. I guess thats just a wrong assumption on my part that it would have this.
 
The reason i've chosen TomTom & Navigon only is because:

- TomTom owns TeleAtlas. Google had signed a 5 year deal with Tele Atlas to provide digital maps for various Google applications. Google Earth, and the Google Maps API had previously used Tele Atlas data, so the deal wasn’t a big deal by itself. However, I noticed today that at least in the areas of the USA I’ve checked, Google is now also using Tele Atlas data for the Google Maps website (maps.google.com) that previously used NAVTEQ data.

- Navigon use NAVTEQ. NAVTEQ is a US based company, while TeleAtlas is based in Europe. So while NAVTEQ is definately the better choice for North America, TeleAtlas is better for Europe. Garmin and Magellan are using NAVTEQ, so clearly Magellan and Garmin have made a decision that the extra money for NAVTEQ is worth it. In my own testing, I found TeleAtlas mapping data was less accurate than NAVTEQ on several occasions.

- TomTom & Navigon make their hardware & software. The rest (Sygic, iGo, G-Map...) only make the software.
 
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