Windows Phone Thoughts: Prairies to the Coast - A Ride With iGuidance 3.0

Getting a Fix
Once you have the route established, it’s time to take it out on the road. As mentioned before, when iGuidance is started up, it automatically turns on the GPS unit and attempts to establish a current position. iGuidance needs a lock on at least 4 satellites to firmly establish and track location. It identifies this has happened by turning the current position icon/arrow green on the map. If it has only 3 satellites locked, the arrow turns yellow and less that than leaves the arrow red. You can also see the status of the satellite links on the GPS Info screen.


Figure 8: Display of satellite connections and locks.

The bars at the bottom of the screen is a bit different from the usual ‘radar screen’ display shown on other applications, but it does give an indication of relatively strength of the connections. Again, the bars and text turn red, yellow or green, depending upon the status of the location lock. On my HTC using the internal antenna only, iGuidance was able to establish a lock the first time within about 3 to 5 minutes, and for subsequent uses, it has been averaging about 1 to 2 minutes, which is about average for the unit. If one is moving however, it takes considerably longer. Using an external GPS antenna will greatly decrease ‘lock time’ and overall accuracy and I highly recommend acquiring one if you regularly use the GPS.

On the Road
Once you have your route established and your location is locked it’s time to hit the road. iGuidance waits until the ‘lock’ is established before attempting to calculate a route to your selected destination (or first stopover). Generally, I found the route calculation to be very quick –- on the order of a second or two – even for long and complicated routes. Once the route is established, it will display as a blue line on the map.


Figure 9: We have a route! Note the + and – transparent buttons on each side of the screen increase and decrease (respectively) the scale of the map. Street names show up at lower scales.

Alternately, you can see a text list of all the directions and turns, etc. for the route.


Figure 10: iGuidance’s Route List.

While on the road, iGuidance shows you your current location on the map, the street you are currently on, the next turn, the street you are turning on to, speed, distance to destination, estimated time of arrival, and remaining travel time. Unfortunately, with this much information to display along with the current position on the map, the fonts used get a bit small for easy reading from the driver’s position. The North pointer in the upper left corner also doubles as a button to shift between ‘North at top’ or ‘Drive to top’ orientation for the map itself. Although the speed displayed disagreed with my speedometer by about 3-4 km/h, the ETAs were pretty accurate, even on long distances on varying road types (urban vs. rural vs. highway).

The only option for voice prompts is female, in English, but they do change use of units based on the Distance Units selection from the Options menu. Female voices tend to cut through background noise better than male voices, but these voice prompts and the associated chimes for various alarms are recorded at a fairly low level. Even with the PPC volume and the iGuidance prompt volume set to maximum, I suspect they would be lost in a vehicle with moderate road noise, conversations, etc. The voice prompts can be turned off and on by tapping the red speaker button in the lower right corner of the map.

Overall, iGuidance provides the greatest variety and precision of voice prompts of any navigation software I’ve heard. Not only do you get the usual turn right, turn left, and drive distance prompts, the software is intelligent enough to interpret different kinds of situations, such as ‘enter freeway on the right’ and ‘keep to the left’ and, if two directions are required a short distance apart, the voice prompt combines them (“…in 500 metres, bear left, then immediately turn right.”) I was quite happily surprised by the variety and accuracy of the prompts as we moved through the city. The part I didn’t like was being reminded of upcoming turns a) after completing the last turn; b) at 1km before the turn; c) at 500m before the turn; d) at 200m before the turn; e) at the turn (a chime). After a while, this repetition just gets annoying.

As you approach a turn, iGuidance also provides a thermometer bar at the side of the screen that indicates proximity to the turn point. I didn’t find this particularly useful, since at the time of a turn, I’m more focused on the road than looking at the screen.