Navigon MobileNavigator Europe (iPhone)

I was looking into updating the maps for my 3 year old Sony NV-U70 and found that it would cost me around EUR 70 to get the latest maps (dated 2007, and thus also already outdated). That and the fact that the internal battery of the NV-U70 is in very bad shape (30 minutes and the battery is dead), made it and easier to seriously consider Navigon’s MobileNavigator for the iPhone (priced at EUR 74.99 till June 30th). For me another added advantage is the maps included with the application, I now finally have map data for Croatia (only 56%) but way better than the 0% available for the NV-U70 or the TomTom’s solution.

This my most expensive iPhone app ever that I purchased, but for me it was worth the price.

Overview
The navigation screen display a road map besides your current position on the map a lot of additional information.

Not all of the information is displayed at the same time, but can be easily switched between by tapping on the top or bottom bar

By tapping on the top bar you can switch between the following information:
Distance to destination:
Estimated time of arrival:
Current driving speed:

Tapping on the bottom bar allows you to switch between the following information:
Current position:
Next way point:

Lane Assistant
When you arrive at a point where you need to change lanes/take an exit you will receive onscreen and spoken information. For the exit show in the image even the information displayed on the roadsigns matched (happily surprised).

    

Speed Assistant
While driving the maximum allowed speed is show in the top-right corner of the screen. We you go above the maximum speed an exclamation mark is displayed as well and you receive a spoken alert.

  

These alerts are as good as the data available to the application, because on my trip I used a stretch of highway that had its maximum speed reduced from 120 km/h to 100 km/h. So please be mindful of your speed.

GPS signal and route (re)calculation
During the test trip the iPhone lost the GPS signal from time to time or the location was not accurate enough. MobileNavigator will than display the text "GPS" in the top bar and in the left-bottom corner an image display a calculator and a trail of way points). As soon the new route is calculated or the GPS has a fix again the normal navigation information will be displayed again.

To test the route recalculation I ignored the instructions at a certain way point during my test trip. From the moment I had ignored the instructions it took only 7 seconds for MobileNavigator to detect that I was not taking the advised route and it started calculating an alternative route to my final destination.

Phone calls
Receiving phone call during navigation. When the phone call is finished you will be returned to MobileNavigator and it will pickup where it has left off. It looks however it is a complete restart of the application so you will wait another 30-60 seconds for the app to have fully started and navigation is working again. So hopefully you never receive phone calls when you are on a tricky part of your trip.

Issue using MobileNavigator
I had some minor issues with information stored within the address book on my iPhone.

1. Since the new release of the iPhone OS (or maybe this happened even earlier) you can no longer enter a country manually, but it needs to be selected from a list of values. For most of my contacts outside of The Netherlands I still had the country information that I had entered manually into the country field. This causes in some cases MobileNavigator to think that these addresses, although foreign, are within The Netherlands. So make sure you properly update the foreign addresses you will want to use with MobileNavigator.
2. MobileNavigator only allows you to select addresses within the current active group of contacts within the address book. So I have a group named ‘Hotels’ in my address book and when I had that group selected within the address book, I will only be able to selected from addresses from group when in MobileNavigator. Hopefully this bug will be fixed in an updated version. So make sure before leaving the address book you select the ‘All contacts’ group

Jippie !!

Mijn iPhone stencil is binnen

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Nieuwe switch

Netjes achter bureau geschroefd

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Cadeau

Cadeautje van de zaak

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