Well, today I had my first real opportunity to use the beta version of Nokia Drive for Windows Phone 8. I was operating a Nokia Lumia 920.
Overall impressions:
The app worked quite well for the most part. It found our current location quickly and got us to where we were going with only 1 error (a dead end street that the app seemed to think went on to link up with another street), and one bug (a street name that is inaccurate on the app - The name of the street is Andria drive and the app says it is Andrea drive). The second issue is relatively small, but if I was in a bigger city, it could have been a major problem. On the plus side, the interface was nice, the maps were very clean and attractive, and the voice guidance worked well including the use of street names.
Having used the app to go around town to 11 different locations in a row, there is one big thing that needs to be improved in my view. The Nokia drive app needs to have an integrated voice command function for finding addresses. As it stands now, you can go through the search function for the phone, or the voice command function from the OS. As a bit of a tip, I found that there were a few times that I hit the voice command (hold the home key for a few seconds) and did a search for an address, but no map came up. This could be remedied it seemed by adding the word "map" at the end of the search. For example when searching one could say "search for, 555 main street, Dallas Texas, map". That seemed to bring up the Bing map of the location and one could ask the phone to provide direction from there by clicking on the flag that highlights the chosen location.
Regardless, this needs to be more completely integrated in the Nokia drive app itself. Or, Nokia drive needs to be integrated with the OS more effectively. With my android phone, I could hit the voice command button and simply say "Navigate to 555 main street, Dallas Texas" and it would pull up the Google Navigator from there and everything would be automatic from that point on. It worked very well and was intuitive. There is no reason that this should functionality should not be enabled on this platform with the promised integration between the phone OS and Nokia's locations services.
The other big thing which needs to be added is, when you are approaching your destination, the app needs to tell you if you need to be looking to the right or left. For example, other navigation systems I have used all say something like "... in .2 miles, your destination will be on the right". This is a valuable piece of information to have, in particular in cities with multi-lane streets and in busy traffic.
So, in short: 1) allow for direct opening of the app through the voice command activated by the home button, 2) provide information as to whether your destination is on your right or left, and 3) fix a couple of other minor bugs, and this will be an awesome app and as good or better than any navigation system I have used.
As it stands now, sans those things, I give it a B at best.
Overall impressions:
The app worked quite well for the most part. It found our current location quickly and got us to where we were going with only 1 error (a dead end street that the app seemed to think went on to link up with another street), and one bug (a street name that is inaccurate on the app - The name of the street is Andria drive and the app says it is Andrea drive). The second issue is relatively small, but if I was in a bigger city, it could have been a major problem. On the plus side, the interface was nice, the maps were very clean and attractive, and the voice guidance worked well including the use of street names.
Having used the app to go around town to 11 different locations in a row, there is one big thing that needs to be improved in my view. The Nokia drive app needs to have an integrated voice command function for finding addresses. As it stands now, you can go through the search function for the phone, or the voice command function from the OS. As a bit of a tip, I found that there were a few times that I hit the voice command (hold the home key for a few seconds) and did a search for an address, but no map came up. This could be remedied it seemed by adding the word "map" at the end of the search. For example when searching one could say "search for, 555 main street, Dallas Texas, map". That seemed to bring up the Bing map of the location and one could ask the phone to provide direction from there by clicking on the flag that highlights the chosen location.
Regardless, this needs to be more completely integrated in the Nokia drive app itself. Or, Nokia drive needs to be integrated with the OS more effectively. With my android phone, I could hit the voice command button and simply say "Navigate to 555 main street, Dallas Texas" and it would pull up the Google Navigator from there and everything would be automatic from that point on. It worked very well and was intuitive. There is no reason that this should functionality should not be enabled on this platform with the promised integration between the phone OS and Nokia's locations services.
The other big thing which needs to be added is, when you are approaching your destination, the app needs to tell you if you need to be looking to the right or left. For example, other navigation systems I have used all say something like "... in .2 miles, your destination will be on the right". This is a valuable piece of information to have, in particular in cities with multi-lane streets and in busy traffic.
So, in short: 1) allow for direct opening of the app through the voice command activated by the home button, 2) provide information as to whether your destination is on your right or left, and 3) fix a couple of other minor bugs, and this will be an awesome app and as good or better than any navigation system I have used.
As it stands now, sans those things, I give it a B at best.
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