Voice Navigation Round-up: GPS Voice vs. Turn by Turn Navigation

Voice navigation has landed on your Windows Phone by style of apps such as GPS Voice Navigation, Silver Navigator, aSpass and Turn past Plow Navigation. These navigation apps bring the spoken discussion to your travel directions, But which is ameliorate?  Prices range from $2.99 to $half dozen.99 only which are worth the cost of admission and which aren't?

We decided to practice a head to caput comparison of the various voice navigation apps bachelor for your Windows Phone.  First up, nosotros take a look at GPS Voice Navigation and Plough by Plough Navigation.  They are the heavy weights of the group (both in toll and features) and nosotros'll plow our sights on Silverish Navigator and aSpass adjacent.

We recently took both GPS Voice and Plough past Turn out for a route trip to see how well both performed. Did GPS Voice Navigation out perform Turn by Turn or did information technology state usa in the middle of nowhere? Did Plow by Turn steer us into a cow pasture or did was it the shiny coin betwixt the two?

You lot know the drill. To discover out how these 2 navigation apps shook out, navigate your style past the interruption.

General Appearance

A navigation application can have pin point accuracy simply if the layout of the application is poorly designed, you lot might besides stop at the local 7-eleven and inquire for directions. Fortunately, both GPS Phonation and Turn by Plough Navigation are well laid out apps.

GPS Vox Navigation utilizes a combination of Bing, Google, Yahoo and MapQuest maps and supports both road and hybrid views.

Your GPS signal indicator and speed are displayed at the summit of the map with a small-scale compass located in the bottom left corner. Buttons to search for addresses, follow me (centers the map on your location), create directions and await-upward (finds the closest address to the centre of the map). The three-dot menu has controls to articulate the trip/route, view the route/trip details as well as admission the settings, assistance and about features.

GPS Voice'due south map is touch on zoomable and lists a limited number of businesses. In that location is also a slide scale to the right of the screen you can use to zoom in/out. GPS Voice does not have the ability to salvage destinations as favorites simply will display your almost recent accost searches when you pull up the search field.

Once a route/trip is established a scale will appear to indicate the distance your route has and the fourth dimension the app is estimating it will take to reach your destination.

Turn by Plough Navigation is laid out in a similar fashion. Turn past Plough utilizes BING maps and also supports route and hybrid views. To the elevation of the main page is your navigational displays (speed, estimated time of arrival, altitude, and next turn). There is too an icon to the left of this console that will give y'all a visual of your next turn and how far you are from it. Downwards the right side of the screen are controls to follow your position, zoom in/out, and mute the aural directions.

The map on Plow by Turn is also touch navigable (pinch to zoom, etc.) or you can use the "+" and "-" buttons to zoom in and out.

Button controls are located at the lesser of the screen that control search, favorites, settings and the nigh screen. The three dot carte du jour pulls up controls to toggle between street and hybrid views besides every bit stopping the navigation.

Both GPS Voice and Plow by Turn support both vertical and horizontal orientations. Additionally, both can have the map rotate with your movement or be static with directional north always existence at the top.

Interface

Both Plough by Turn Navigation and GPS Voice Navigation have search features to locate destination addresses. Once y'all've found your destination, with GPS Vox you lot have a "directions" button at the bottom of the screen yous can button to generate your driving directions.

With Plow past Turn you tap on the address flag on the map to pull up data on your destination. From this window you lot can charge per unit the accost, add together it to your favorites, and (for some locations) phone call the location or check out it's web site. Most importantly, from this window you can tap the "Go" button and generate driving directions.

I take to give the nod to GPS Vox for the easier interface to generate directions only Plow past Turn makes up for it by providing more than data on your destination.

Oh... another plus for Turn by Turn is that yous can search for business names. GPS Voice volition only search for locations by address.

On the Road

In testing out both GPS Phonation and Plow past Turn, I took a 45 mile route trip (perfect excuse to go line-fishing) to my parent's lake house. On the trip to the lake, I used Turn past Plow and on the return trip, I used GPS Vocalism.

The biggest hurdle both navigation apps take to overcome is the data dependence. Both apps struggled to redraw maps while on the open route (traveling at interstate speeds) and at times, could not download maps at all. Turn past Turn performed the best, re-drawing maps faster but I still had periods where the re-draw rate couldn't match my speed (resulting in blurry roads) and there were empty voids on the map when a strong information connexion wasn't present.

The accuracy of my location was displayed within feet of my bodily location with both apps. Travel speeds were within 3mph or my actual speed and while there was a little lag in displaying my movements, it wasn't enough to cause issues. Even when the maps struggled to re-fatigued, the fiddling cursor represnting my location moved forth nicely.

In choosing a familiar route, I was able to deviate my travels to examination the route re-calculation feature on both apps without risking getting lost. GPS Voice Navigation re-calculated my route the quickest but both took a dreadful corporeality of time to detect an alternate route. I too noticed that both plotted a course that really wasn't every bit directly as information technology could exist.

I liked the larger header on GPS Voice Navigation. It displayed my speed, how far until the adjacent turn and a big road sign to point the nature of the turn. Turn by Turn has a similar layout merely the print is smaller. Turn by Turn does have a nice characteristic where a cerise dot blinks on the map at your next plough. Both, in their own perspective, made information technology easy to pick up on your side by side turn but I accept to requite the edge to GPS Navigation.

Plough by Plow ran smoothly during the 45 minute bulldoze merely GPS Voice crashed twice generating an "unknown error". Luckily, when I re-started GPS Voice it resumed my route. Still, the instability could crusade yous to miss a turn.

Lastly, both GPS Vocalism and Plow past Turn take their cost on your Windows Phone battery. From keeping the screen on to the information connection, either can suck the life out of a bombardment rather easily. A automobile charger is a must for either.

Conclusion

While both GPS Vocalism Navigation and Turn past Plow Navigation are nice travel apps for your Windows Telephone, I have to give the nod to Plough by Turn.

Turn past Turn offers more features such as favorites, keyword searches for businesses, and the power to access websites and make calls from within the app. I think the gene that pushed Turn past Turn over the top was the instability experienced with GPS Voice. It was nice to run across my route was saved when I re-started the app only once again, the delay was long enough where I could take missed a turn.

I do similar GPS Voice'south header a lilliputian better for information technology's simplicity and ease of reading at a glance. Both, and I don't know if this is possible, actually needs to find a way to load maps to the phone to prevent any data lag that slows down re-draw rates or loss of maps completely. The route re-calculation needs to speed up likewise. I understand this outcome could be caused by a poor data signal and not a flaw in the app. However, had I not been traveling on familiar roads, I would have had to pull over to avoid getting lost while the route was re-calculated.

Some other factor that might enter into the equation as to which voice navigation app is the best would exist the toll. Plow by Turn is running $4.99 while GPS Voice is $6.99.

Luckily, in that location is a trial version of both to permit you to try earlier y'all buy. Each trial has a limit of a 12 mile route only otherwise is fully functional.

As far as ratings go, I'd give Turn past Plough an 7.5 and GPS Voice a 6 (fix the stability issues then it'due south a seven). You can find GPS Vocalization Navigation hither (opens Zune) and Plough past Plow Navigation hither at the Marketplace.

Updates for both in the works

And you thought we were done....

We mentioned this a few days agone that GPS Phonation Navigation is due for a major update. Well, Turn by Turn Navigation is as well slated for a major update. I was able to take both updates out for a exam bulldoze (post-obit the same road) and here'southward how they intermission downward.

GPS Voice Navigation

The updated version of GPS Voice Navigation, version 2, was recently released on the Marketplace and brings the following improvements to the app.

• Added multi-language support for both UI and routing for all currently supported WP languages (EN, FR, DE, IT, SP)
• Significantly improved vocalisation guidance behavior on the road including small-scale features such as roundabout back up, composite directions such as Turn left then turn right, timing, etc
• Improved numerous layout features including meliorate landscape view, smoother animations, more stable beliefs of the map
• Improved searching and favorite destinations functionality
• Significantly improved map loading performance
• Addressed a common result with not existence able to find a road in situations when the GPS is not ready nonetheless, or there is an cyberspace connexion event
• Improved overall stability of the app.

In taking version (v2) out for a test drive and the updated version does address many of the problems I found with v1. Maps loaded smoother and I didn't accept the dead spaces when data reception became weak. The app seems every bit if when the app downloads maps, it downloads a larger overall map for your route. There was yet a lilliputian lag time when traveling interstate speeds (as if the map could re-draw fast plenty) only noticeably amend with version 2.

Where v1 crashed during my travels, v2 ran smoothly with no glitches, bugs or crashes experienced.

GPS Vocalism Navigation still doesn't support keyword searches but the updated version does bring these two app closer.

Turn by Turn Navigation

Plow by Turn brings the following features to the table with version 1.1:

• Map download feature to minimize data roaming where but the route planning requires the data connection (smaller corporeality of data transferred)
• Itinerary/Plow Listing feature
• Listing view of search results that can be sorted past Name or Distance
• Choice to avoid or minimize Toll Roads/Highways
• The customary bug fixes, performance enhancements.

The downloadable maps is a nice feature. Simply utilise a brush tool to paint the area of the map you desire to save that encompasses your route and hit save. The save process does take a while simply even the smallest maps are 30-40mb in size. This characteristic helps address the lag fourth dimension experienced with map re-draws that the current version possesses. Every bit with GPS Vocalisation, there is a little lag fourth dimension present but not as noticeable as with version ane.

The Itinerary listing is a nice addition as well. GPS Vocalism has had this feature and it'south a prissy way to review your turns earlier getting behind the bike.

Turn by Plough version 1.1 is in the final testing phases with the developer and is expected to be submitted to Microsoft for certification presently. Additionally, the developers are already working on version i.2 that will bring German, French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese linguistic communication support into the mix.

Conclusion Office Two

Overall, both updates heading to these voice navigation apps improve both apps tremendously. I'll stick with my recommendation on Turn by Turn Navigation equally having a slight border over GPS Vocalisation Navigation just the gap is definitely narrowed with these updates.

Again, the biggest weakness of both navigational apps is the dependence on information. Plow by Turn is improving things, in role, by having the downloadable map selection. GPS Voice besides takes a footstep in the correct direction by downloading a larger portion of the map involved in the route. But if y'all're in a weak signal expanse, route calculations (or re-calculations) are still laggy at times.  Not certain how to fix that data dependent feature and it only may exist one attribute we'll have to live with.

Speaking of which, both update recalculated routes noticeably quicker than the previous versions.

Once both updated versions are available at the Marketplace, these two apps may be and so close information technology will have downloading the trial to run across which one meets your personal tastes and needs all-time.  Here'due south how we'll rate these apps taking the updates into consideration.

GPS Vocalism Navigation: 7.5 (update really helps overall performance)

Turn past Plough Navigation: 8.v (keyword search and downloadable maps give information technology the border)

Oh Dear

New report reveals Microsoft's future AR strategy; HoloLens 3 is dead

Business organisation Insider has today published a follow-up study with more details about Microsoft's canceled HoloLens 3 augmented reality headset. The partnership with Samsung is said to include a headset with a fix of screens inside, powered by a Samsung phone in your pocket.

Keeping it affordable

Review: Surface Laptop SE is the new standard for K-viii Windows PCs

Starting at just $250, Microsoft's beginning foray into affordable laptops for the pedagogy market is a winner. With a gorgeous blueprint, fantabulous thermals, and a fantastic typing experience, Microsoft would exercise right to sell this directly to consumers equally well. Let'southward but promise Intel can make a meliorate CPU.

A Heir-apparent's Guide

Ready for your next trip with the best travel routers

If you're going on a trip, you demand a portable travel router that not only provides a fast connection, but offers a few more uses too. Here's the travel routers that will make dealing with Wi-Fi on your tip a cakewalk.

Source: https://www.windowscentral.com/voice-navigation-round-gps-voice-vs-turn-turn-navigation

Posted by: jonesbobjections.blogspot.com

Share this post