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Hi Tomas,Are you the developer/support engineer/HR director/President of MapFactor? It's a good product with a "no extra junk" UI, which I really prefer, however... If you want to be really successful and have Google buy you out for a trillion dollars, you really need to get street names in the turn by turn navigation. Also, if you work in things like "slight right onto ramp", like Google nav does, you will be rich in no time. I find that your app is fine as long as I am familiar with the territory, however, in August we will be in the Scottish Highlands where many of the roads are little more than cow paths. Being able to hear the voice say what you are turning on to is indispensable, if you don't want to kill yourself by constantly looking at the display. You DO know they drive on the wrong side of the road there... All your concentration is needed just to avoid oncoming traffic.
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Hi poco,
don't worry. I have experience driving about 2000 km through Ireland two years ago with Navigator free. And believe me: Even using 'shortest' as prefered I got no trouble except because of the road conditions but never because of routing orders. -
No I'm from Germany.
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I appreciate the support hurdy, but I'm afraid it's a deal breaker for me. I have used the app for a week or so, and I just don't like to have to look at the map while driving to see the street name that I am supposed to be turning on to. Does Ireland use round-abouts, S and if so, how well did it do with them?
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Poco where did you get your information from on the state of Scotland's roads? I can assure you that there are very few 'cow paths' and even if you were on a 'cow path' the only traffic you are going to see is either cows or the farmers tractor.
I also think that you are overstating the importance of spoken street names. If you are in an unfamiliar area you are very unlikely to know which street the name refers to or to be able to see them in time to make use of that information unless you are walking, in which case there is no problem looking at the map.
It cannot be a 'deal breaker' as the software is free no money is involved unless of course you buy Tom Tom maps.
Maybe you should review your requirement for street names. To me it doesn't make sense.
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A lot of roundabouts found in Ireland clockwise and drove through without any problems. In Ireland several streets are named in Gaelic or are without naming. So I had to trust spoken advices and it worked
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Now, now, Roldorf, don't get your panties in a bunch. Perhaps cowpath was not the best descriptor of the lane-and-a-half roads borderd closely by stone walls, with local drivers coming at you full speed, cutting across private land, where the land owner has installed gates that may or may not be closed, but... We had to back track many miles when MS AutoRoute, used on my laptop took us down such roads, only to find out that we were actually on someone's private drive.
I guess I am just spoiled using Google Navigation. It gives very specific driving directions, with full rout names, making it next to impossible to miss a turn, exit from a freeway, or find location. Add streetview to that, and you can see how it might really make everything else pale in comparison.
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P.P.S I have driven from Royal Tunbridge Wells to Oban, from Arran ro Aviemore over several trips, and do have some knowledge of the driving experience. The average lane width in the UK is three feet smaller than the roads in the US, hence the need for very small cars, not to mention that gasoline is sold by the liter there.
Tomas, Navigator is far from error free... I have been using it around town where I live, and it is constantly telling me to exit the freeway, and immediately reenter. I can see what it is doing on the display, so I ignore those instructions, but if I was out in the Scottish countryside a hundred miles or so, and it told me to "turn left", having the assurance that it actually knows the road name (and no - there are NO roads in scotland without a road name. In most cases, it is a number, but that's still an identifer) that I am supposed to turn onto provides significant confidence that I will not end up in a bog.
Also, no one here refers to freeway ramps as slip roads. Is that a regional/voice file setting?
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We have those exit from 'freeway' and re-enter errors in Europe too but that is not the fault of Navigator but rather the open street maps. I spotted one on the A1 at the Mienenbütel westbound junction in Northern Germany 2 weeks ago. When I looked on the OSM website someone had already fixed it and a map update in the following two days had the error fixed. You can always join OSM and help to make the maps better in your area.
Slip road is the English (British) word for ramp as they don't always join or exit on a slope.
We in the UK have no problems with the smaller roads maybe we are just better drivers.
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Tomas,
When your developers are considering which TTS voice types to use, please advise them to avoid whatever Sygic is using. Their TTS spech is practically useless because of all the silly artifacts produced when interpreting street names. Tell them to model it after Google. The quality difference can be quantified thus: Sygic TTS voice files: 20-30 MB, Google TTS voice files: 250 MB. Space is cheap, especially if conserving space renders the product useless or even worse, comical.
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In this Discussion
- hurdygurdyman May 2014
- Kubsztal May 2014
- poco May 2014
- Roldorf May 2014
- tomas May 2014