I Hate Maps & Navigation!

alexr

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Well, I have had my Droid for over a month now and I have finally come to a verdict on Google Maps Navigation.

It Sucks.

Why? A number of reasons, none related to the actual phone. I love the phone, it works great for anything I need it for. E-mailing, texting, browsing, it all works. The only thing that seems to cause me grief is Google maps.

The ads advertised the GPS navigation, sure it works, barely. First off, if you know the address, it may work better. I have put addresses in and it would route me to where it thought the location was. The only problem was that the place I was looking for was just a bunch of woods on my left according to the Navigation app.

After about 20 minutes I realized that there was another road with the same name across the highway. I crossed the highway and went down the road and found the location in no time. This hasn't happened just once, this happens about 50% of the time I try to find a place.

POIs, don't even get me started on these. The correct name would be "POS", they are almost always wrong. Heck, some of the time they don't even have the right road for the address. Just two days ago I selected a POI and clicked navigate. It told me I arrived when I pulled up to an intersection with absolutely nothing there. I called up the place I was looking for just to find out that the POI in Google Maps didn't even have the right street.

Markers are almost always in the wrong place, the directions will tell you to turn right even if you are just supposed to go straight and slightly turn to stay on the road. If you try to report either of these problems you can expect for them not to get fixed in a timely fashion. Even if the thing does seem to have an idea where to go, the directions are just about the worst I have ever seen at some points. Whenever I want to turn onto I-95 it wants me to make a U-turn instead of just turning left at the light onto the ramp.

It is an insult to even call this a navigation app. The only thing it seems to work for is getting me home, and that is because I usually have an idea where I am going.

Ever since they got rid of the Navtec maps, google maps has been the most unreliable service Google has ever put out.


Hopefully TomTom or Garmin comes out with something respectable.

By the way, I use google products for almost everything, so this isn't just an "I hate google" rant.
 

iPirate

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Works so far for me. I missed a package once because i didnt put E in my address, user error...

I consider TomTom and Garmin dead, google nav is the future
 

dezymond

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works great for me. it's never once misguided me or anything.

it is still in beta form, but it does feel like it's a full software. i would think it's beta because google is constantly updating it.
 
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A

alexr

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The software works, its the maps that are no where up to the quality of Navtec and Teleatlas. I agree that the software works fine, the directions aren't perfect, but the maps have to be rated horrible.
 

kountryj

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Maps has never given me any problems either. I was in tampa a month ago, had no clue where I was or where I was going, thanks to my droid everywhere I wanted to go it gave me turn by turn directions spot on each time.
 

aacanela73

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Good luck with mine. Love the turn by turn it steered me back after I made a wrong turn without having to turn around and I was just going to a town in general not an address.
 

deputc26

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It's worked great for me so far but it is still beta.
 

kevin1016

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Navigation has worked perfectly for me, every time. I've never experienced any of the problems that you have. It amazes me that it's beta.
 

eliassami5

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this is a first, everybody i know has loved the navigation app and think it works wonderfully, and so do I. maybe you just live in a really really old town? idk but good luck lol
 

jefbystereo

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I did have my first problem with nav last weekend (well more of a problem with gmaps, not the nav software). We were out of town and looked up a deli on yelp. Then went to navigate to it and the navigation took us to an intersection about half a mile away from the place. The odd part is the yelp map (which is powered by google) was correct, however the google maps and nav are wrong on its placement.
 

lmapp

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Mine works about as good as my Garmin does. I didn't buy the phone with the idea of it replacing my Nav.

It's a phone running a beta version of a navigation program.
 

gentlefury

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Well, I have had my Droid for over a month now and I have finally come to a verdict on Google Maps Navigation.

It Sucks.

Why? A number of reasons, none related to the actual phone. I love the phone, it works great for anything I need it for. E-mailing, texting, browsing, it all works. The only thing that seems to cause me grief is Google maps.

The ads advertised the GPS navigation, sure it works, barely. First off, if you know the address, it may work better. I have put addresses in and it would route me to where it thought the location was. The only problem was that the place I was looking for was just a bunch of woods on my left according to the Navigation app.

After about 20 minutes I realized that there was another road with the same name across the highway. I crossed the highway and went down the road and found the location in no time. This hasn't happened just once, this happens about 50% of the time I try to find a place.

POIs, don't even get me started on these. The correct name would be "POS", they are almost always wrong. Heck, some of the time they don't even have the right road for the address. Just two days ago I selected a POI and clicked navigate. It told me I arrived when I pulled up to an intersection with absolutely nothing there. I called up the place I was looking for just to find out that the POI in Google Maps didn't even have the right street.

Markers are almost always in the wrong place, the directions will tell you to turn right even if you are just supposed to go straight and slightly turn to stay on the road. If you try to report either of these problems you can expect for them not to get fixed in a timely fashion. Even if the thing does seem to have an idea where to go, the directions are just about the worst I have ever seen at some points. Whenever I want to turn onto I-95 it wants me to make a U-turn instead of just turning left at the light onto the ramp.

It is an insult to even call this a navigation app. The only thing it seems to work for is getting me home, and that is because I usually have an idea where I am going.

Ever since they got rid of the Navtec maps, google maps has been the most unreliable service Google has ever put out.


Hopefully TomTom or Garmin comes out with something respectable.

By the way, I use google products for almost everything, so this isn't just an "I hate google" rant.

News flash, stand alone gps navigators have the same problems...the advantage to google nav is that its updated online.

So you can either have an always on nav that is always up to date giving you occasionally bad directions (I haven't had this issue yet)

Or a standalone that you have to download updates yearly (never fully up to date) that gives crappy directions.

The things I would change with google nav is it needs favorites, and it needs to reroute based on traffic info! Google is the only map program that actually has surface street info! I would love to see that used for navigation!

It would also be nice to give you a city wide cache option.

Oh and I dont know about you, but the first thing I see when nav starts is NAVTEC.
 

droiddict

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Maps has never given me any problems either. I was in tampa a month ago, had no clue where I was or where I was going, thanks to my droid everywhere I wanted to go it gave me turn by turn directions spot on each time.

I LOVE Maps and navigation when I am travelling. It makes me feel like a local because I can find anything with a few clicks. Many times it finds the store I need right across the street and I just didn't know it was in the back of a mall. Once we were looking for a good salad place for lunch and it found a perfect salad buffet a couple of blocks away. The only time I can remember being misdirected was back in the pre-Droid days when I used to print out directions from Maps online and it had the wrong location by a few blocks like the OP said. At least with the map in hand and the phone number, you have a chance of finding a place.
 

kevin1016

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It's a phone running a beta version of a navigation program.
Exactly why it's absolutely phenomenal! A phone running a beta version of a navigation program is rivaling the heavy weights. They should be scared, very scared.
 

souljerr

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The things I would change with google nav is it needs favorites, and it needs to reroute based on traffic info! Google is the only map program that actually has surface street info! I would love to see that used for navigation!

It would also be nice to give you a city wide cache option.

No issues with navigation for me either and agree with you on those changes. Maybe we'll get that when it comes out of "beta".
 
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