Which gps programs tell you which side of the street your destination is on?

[Gilliland]

Originally Posted by mogulust

My problem with it is that even when switching between quickest, shortest, and major, route finding options, it never gives me a very logical route. Tested against TomTom, livesearch and googlemaps, it's by far the worst in this regard. Also the maps aren't very attractive or well rendered compared to TomTom.

Wow. I haven't tried TomTom, but I've certainly compared iGuidance against Google Maps and Live Search. In my experience, with numerous different routes tested, iGuidance puts the other two to shame. None of the apps that I've tried are perfect - but iGuidance comes closest to the route that I'd choose myself when I know the path well.

[mr_e]

Originally Posted by Gilliland

Wow. I haven't tried TomTom, but I've certainly compared iGuidance against Google Maps and Live Search. In my experience, with numerous different routes tested, iGuidance puts the other two to shame. None of the apps that I've tried are perfect - but iGuidance comes closest to the route that I'd choose myself when I know the path well.

I also use iGuidance and would agree it provides the route closes to what I would choose if I knew the location.

But hey, the GPS is best suited to getting places that you don't know well, so I'd rather have the peace of mind that I will get there rather than worrying about if I'm getting there the way a local would.

As far as my iGuidance route settings, I use quickest method with reduced turns and that seems to work pretty well. And when it doesn't, ignore the directions and let it reroute you.

[SBR_L3GION]

the sprint navigation cab is out there for mogul.

[sbddude]

Garmin tells you what side the street your destination is on, has free traffic, does not require you to fill your entire memory card, and has the same maps as iguidance (navteq) and a comparibly good interface as tomtom. The POIs are very complete. It does not have Text to speech (spoken street names). It also works directly with the internal GPS without any launchers or hacks.

It is currently my favorite GPS program.

[miguelfp1]

Originally Posted by sbddude

Garmin tells you what side the street your destination is on, has free traffic, does not require you to fill your entire memory card, and has the same maps as iguidance (navteq) and a comparibly good interface as tomtom. The POIs are very complete. It does not have Text to speech (spoken street names). It also works directly with the internal GPS without any launchers or hacks.

It is currently my favorite GPS program.

+1 for Garmin Mobile. I like the way that you can select just the maps you need, instead of getting them all on the memory card, right now I have 40MBs of maps on my card, instead of the 1GB+ that TomTom, iGo or iGuidance have.

[mogulust]

Okay thanks for the suggestions. I will give Garmin a try next since the side of the street announcement is more important to me than the TTS street names, though obviously both would be ideal. I think during this year, 2008, we will be getting some major upgrades to the main navigation programs. I know iGo8 will be released within a month or so and is said to have many improvements over iGo6. Maybe it will turn out to be the perfect solution.

[illusvfyre]

Was just looking at the iGuidance product page and 4.0 includes side of street:

NEW! Text-to-Speech (street name included in voice guidance)
Turn-by-turn voice prompts
Side of street & fwy # notification
Automatic voice alerts before each turn/exit
Repeat voice direction feature
Multiple distance notification for each maneuver

[kingsfan626]

why not just look up the business address for the street number and follow the even/odd when you get close? If it's listed on Live Search it shouldn't take long to find?

[gof]

I travel a fair bit and prefer iGuidance (ver4). With MicroSD cards so cheap (I got my 4GB for less than $20 on sale) the map size isn't an issue, and I don't have to worry about remembering to load a given set of maps. Since I use the GPS primarily when I'm in a rental car in unfamiliar territory, I enjoy (and rely) on the text-to-speech directions. Anything that lets me watch the road, not the GPS. Face it, the sceen isn't *that* big for any GPS app where you want to keep shifting your focus.

Now I primarily use iGuidance with my external Holux unit, although I've briefly tested it with the internal GPS. As has been pointed out by others, and in the Sticky GPS thread http://forum.ppcgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=17032 iGuidance needs some help to use the internal GPS (which I haven't done yet). I haven't noticed any major issues with the quality of the iGuidance POI database as it has most things I've been looking for. My only complaint there is that if you don't know the category of something it can be difficult to find (for example, some stores that don't easily fit into a category). Also, some people have run into a minor bug in early releases of iGuidance 4 where a dll (actually a .bin file) used to communicate the contact address back to the iGuidance software wasn't on the install DVD. If you have this issue see here http://discussion.buygpsnow.com/forums/t/1468.aspx to read more and to download the missing file.

Now I will comment on the use of a sprint provided nav software. I don't see the value unless you use it a lot in an urban area. Microsoft Live and Google Mobile Maps provide just as much up-to-date information, can use the internal GPS now, and are FREE. Further, if you're in an area where you don't get DATA (not just roaming phone, but also roaming data), then you're SOL when it comes to the GPS . I'd much rather spend the $20-$30 on a larger MicroSD card and allways have the maps available. By the time you pay for the subscription for a year, you'd have purchased the GPS software and the memory card... Seems a no-brainer to me.