I hadn't really tried to use my phone as a GPS in a real travel situation. I was driving a rental from the airport and I found my destination in Maps and got directions. I checked them carefully because I knew there were two ways to go and I had been told one of them was blocked by an accident. So I checked the directions, then fired up voice nav and started driving. Suddenly I realized I was being taken in the wrong direction: Here was taking me on the other route, the blocked one.
Because of their "loose" integration it seems there's no hand-off of route from Maps to Drive; Drive must do its own calculations. And because I can't review my route while I'm navigating, I had no way of knowing I was on the wrong path. I should say I passed up on my one and only opportunity to review my route in Drive, which is when it opens up. After that you can't see the directions you're following. (I keep saying this because I can't really believe it is that way in this app.) It never occurred I had to review my directions in Map and then review them again in Drive.
A similar thing that was more my fault was when I was trying to get on I-*) East in Toledo and Drive kept telling me to turn away from the on-ramp. I finally figured out that I had "no freeways" switch on, and when I told it I wanted to go to Pennsylvania it found some way to get me there without I-80. Again I passed up on my option to review the route in Drive after having reviewed it in Maps. My fault the switch was on, but in both these cases the disconnection between the two programs and the lack of route review in Drive added up to a very poor user experience.
I also note in passing that there is no way to keep an overview of my route I can follow as I'm driving; I can zoom out, but it zooms back at the next GPS segment. (I tried using Maps for that but found it has no landscape mode (!))
Also, and again I'm not sure I can blame Drive, but... between it and streaming music to the car, the phone maintained or lost charge level, despite being plugged into power the whole time.
All I can say is I love my Windows Phone and I guess I'm glad I waited until now to really try to use it as a GPS because if I had this experience the first week I would have been back in the store and out with another Android so fast.
Because of their "loose" integration it seems there's no hand-off of route from Maps to Drive; Drive must do its own calculations. And because I can't review my route while I'm navigating, I had no way of knowing I was on the wrong path. I should say I passed up on my one and only opportunity to review my route in Drive, which is when it opens up. After that you can't see the directions you're following. (I keep saying this because I can't really believe it is that way in this app.) It never occurred I had to review my directions in Map and then review them again in Drive.
A similar thing that was more my fault was when I was trying to get on I-*) East in Toledo and Drive kept telling me to turn away from the on-ramp. I finally figured out that I had "no freeways" switch on, and when I told it I wanted to go to Pennsylvania it found some way to get me there without I-80. Again I passed up on my option to review the route in Drive after having reviewed it in Maps. My fault the switch was on, but in both these cases the disconnection between the two programs and the lack of route review in Drive added up to a very poor user experience.
I also note in passing that there is no way to keep an overview of my route I can follow as I'm driving; I can zoom out, but it zooms back at the next GPS segment. (I tried using Maps for that but found it has no landscape mode (!))
Also, and again I'm not sure I can blame Drive, but... between it and streaming music to the car, the phone maintained or lost charge level, despite being plugged into power the whole time.
All I can say is I love my Windows Phone and I guess I'm glad I waited until now to really try to use it as a GPS because if I had this experience the first week I would have been back in the store and out with another Android so fast.
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