Who says August is a slow news month?

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Best of Smartphone Experts, 9 August 2009

(Navigon Mobile Navigator for iPhone Forum Review by cjvitek For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum Review Index!)

MobileNavigator North America [$69.99 - iTunes link], by Navigon, is the second GPS TBT app I examined. This one requires you to download all the maps in advance (1.5 GB for the US version, 1.67 for the European version) so make sure you have space on your iPhone. The advantage of this is that you can get GPS directions even if you do not have an AT&T signal. In addition, the actual "routing" process seems a little faster since it is not downloading directions OTA.

The map interface is very clean and flows very well, clearly showing direction and the upcoming street name. Unfortunately since the app doesn't read the street name, you need to continually look at the app to see where to turn in areas when there are lots of streets next to each other. One nice feature is you can see POI on the map itself – not just a little dot or something, but an actual icon for the POI. When driving by a McDonalds, you can see the golden arches on the map. If the POI doesn't have an logo, it just shows a general icon (gas station, food, etc).

To create a route, you can choose a variety of options in the route profile. These include fastest route, optimum (I believe for driving in cities), shortest, and scenic. You can also choose type of vehicle (including pedestrial), allow/avoid highways, toll roads, ferries, resident only streets, and HOV lates. I like the inclusion of a scenic route, although I am not sure the parameters. Will it take you ½ hour out of the way to see a nice waterfall? What about an hour?

Creating a route is very easy. The app has large buttons to press, and takes you through the step by step process (first state, then city, then street, etc). You can also choose to "take me home" where it will take you to your programmed home destination. At the bottom you can choose to select recent location, search your contacts, or select a favorite location.

Unfortunately you can't specify roads that you prefer or want to avoid (like if you want to go a specific route, or travel by a specific town). In addition, sometimes the route choices seem…well…preposterous. When driving home yesterday, at one point the optimum route told me a certain way to go and get home by 8:07pm. The "shortest" route told me a similar route and got home by 8:08pm. The "fastest route" had me going to Corpus Christi, back down on a highway, and then backtracking – and getting home at 8:56pm. It made absolutely no sense what so ever.

When starting on the trip, I found the ETA to be generally reasonably accurate. An 11 hour, 630 mile trip was predicted initially as 12 hours. When looking at the map, you can tap the screen to see an overhead view, and also get a map summary. Unfortunately, there is no way to get a turn by turn summary of the whole trip.

Within the trip you have a lot of options. You have a speed option. The app comes with speed limits built in, which were accurate at least 90% of the time. You can program if you want the app to warn you if you are speeding (5 mph over, 10mph over, etc). Obviously you can't rely on it, but it is a nice feature to have. In addition, you have the option of creating interim destination – basically a multi stop trip. This is one way to finagle choosing a specific route – just choose a city as an interim destination that is on the road you want to take! The app then tracks both trips, in terms of ETA and miles to go. You can also add a POI along the route (although I am not sure how far "off route" it searches – ½ mile? 1 mile?). You have a night map option and can also change your route profile (fastest to scenic, for example).

Searching for POIs is easy as well. First choose the location (nearby, a specific city, or statewide). You can preprogram three "auto" categories for quick searches as well – I chose gas, hotels, and food. Like other apps, you can't define your search radius for "nearby", but it looks to be about 5 miles or so. The POI library is somewhat lacking, however. While I can understand it for some out of the way hotels, there were some times that a McDonalds (or something similar) was mislabeled on the maps or couldn't be found with a POI.

All in all, I found this to be a solid app, with lots of nice features added in. While the route choice was at times baffling, for the most part I had little to quibble about. The built in speeding warning is a nice feature to have, although you can't rely on it because it is not always 100% accurate. The POI library was lacking somewhat, and I wasn't really sure if I was missing some possible POIs along the way because of that. At $69 (on sale, normally $99) the app is not expensive, but still cheaper in the long run than a monthly fee system. Four out of five stars.

Pros:

• Easy POI lookup
• Maps on device
• Nice graphics and interface
• Lots of options for customizing
• Speed limit warnings!

Cons:

• POI database is lacking
• Doesn't read street names
• Some routes are wildly inaccurate

TiPb Review Rating

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

App Review: Navigon MobileNavigator North America for iPhone

Every week a few of us from team TiPb, bloggers and forum crew alike, will bring you our current favorite, funnest, most useful App Store apps, WebApps, jailbreak apps, even the occasional accessory, web site, or desktop app if the mood strikes us. As long as they’re iPhone (or iPod touch) related, they’re fair game.

So who’s on deck this week and what are our picks? Find out after the break!

Chris’ Pick: GPA+

While still lacking some features (as of our review) this app offers a wide variety of options and settings for tracking courses, assignments, and GPA over the school year. You can add courses and individual assignments, you can track your semester or cumulative GPA, and it provides tools to determine how well you need to do to improve or maintain your GPA. While a little buggy at times, and limited in some cases to the type of data you can enter, it provides an all-in-one solution for any student who wants to track their semester in one iPhone application. Some of our concerns in the review were addressed with various updates that have been provided. [$1.99 - iTunes link]

EleMints - A full featured periodic table of elements, with enough data and versatility for most students. A little more expensive, but the features should wow any potential chemistry student (plus with the updates I have read about, it should address some of the issues I had in the review). [$4.99 - iTunes link]

Wikipanion - While Wikipedia should never, NEVER be used as a reference in a paper, it can be used to get some general information about a topic. Wikipanion is a great iPhone app that interfaces with Wikipedia. Students can use it as a source of general information to look up a variety of topics for just about any class they may take. [Free - iTunes link]

James’ Pick: Appigo’s Todo

Back in May, I selected Appigo’s Todo as my pick of the week.  While I use it more as a business app, this does not exclude its ability to be a robust app for students as well (students have things to do as well, no?).  Todo offers students the ability to create projects with different sub-tasks and prioritize them accordingly.  Don’t take my word for it…TiPB’s Matt Sawyers (aka msbaylor on the forums) reviewed Todo in his Round Robin. [$9.99 - iTunes link]

Justin’s Pick: Cocktails+

I guess I’ve been out of school too long and haven’t used any apps I think are “Back to Schoolish”. Unless it’s back to party school college! then I guess I would say Cocktails+ [$2.99 - iTunes link] and a very good free one called 5800+ Drink & Cocktail Recipes Free [Free - iTunes link]

Leanna’s Pick: ACT MATH Foundation

f you’re in high school and thinking about college, then the ACT exam is likely in your future. Since studying is high on your priority list, you could go to your local bookstore and purchase a heavy review book, or pick up ACT MATH Foundation from the App Store. This app reviews 361 topics that are covered by the ACT Math exam and has practice tests with instant detailed score results. Indriam Inc. also offers similar apps for the GED, GRE, SAT, and GMAT. Studying has never been so fun! [$1.99 on sale - iTunes link]

Matt’s Pick: iHomework

After coming from a palm pilot, I used DueYesterday and missed it very much. Having said that, there are several options out there, but iHomework seems to be the best assignment & grade tracker (and the closest to what I used to use). The application can easily track multiple classes and multiple assignments in each class. One of the really neat things about the app is its grade tracking. It has the ability to do simple grade tracking and more advanced tracking (weighted assignments). With these two types of systems, this makes it a perfect solution for both high school and college students. [$0.99 - iTunes link]

GRE Connect - Recently I have been preparing for the GRE and I scouted out a number of different apps. So far GRE Connect seems to be the best. It not only has a wealth of information - explanations, questions & answers, but it also has some very nifty progress tracking, diagnostic test and quizzes to prepare you for the GRE. Further more if you buy their Desktop application, you can sync with it and keep everything up to date. This, however, will set you back an additional $20, but you are still able to backup for free. [$9.99 - iTunes Link]

iStudiez Pro - iStudiez Pro has the best graphical interface for tracking assignments, but lacks any type of grade tracking. If all you want to do it track assignments, then this has a very nice calendar-view feature. [$1.99 - iTunes Link]

Rene’s Pick: QuickOffice

Though higher education and I agreed to cease hostilities and go our separate ways many moons ago, based on my dim and distant memories there was some need to write and perhaps calculate… stuff. Kidding aside, if you need any type of document editing capability, QuickOffice will help you get your learn on. [$12.99 on sale - iTunes link]

reQall - reQall for iPhone is a client for reQall’s web service (free or pro for $30 a year). David Pogue shows it off with typical… Poguiness on YouTube but the quick version is reQuall lets you capture and organize ideas and tasks in a variety of easy and efficient ways. [Free - iTunes link]

Your Pick?

You’re part of team TiPb too, so what’s your pick? What app was your absolute fav last week? Let us — and everyone — know in the comments!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb Back-to-School Picks - GPA+, EleMints, Wikipanion, Appigo Todo, Cocktails+, ACT MATH Foundation, iHomework, GRE Connect, iStudiez Pro, QuickOffice, reQall

BGR reports a source saying Apple is readying iTunes 9, which will include support for visually organizing apps on the iPhone, and for playing back Blu-Ray media.

iPhone 1.1.3 introduced the ability to add icons (limited to WebClips at the time, expanded to native apps with iPhone 2.0), and to move them around by tapping and holding until they began to jiggle. While this works well enough for a few icons once and a while, it makes totally re-arranging the 11 home screens made available in iPhone 3.0 a tad laborious. Suggestions for, even concept videos of, adding a more robust solution via iTunes have been floating around the web for a while now and would be a welcome addition indeed.

Steve Jobs had famously called Blu-Ray a “bag of hurt” due to licensing, but changes in those licenses and perhaps Apple’s priorities — which previously seemed to want to promote their own download service over physical media — could make it happen. Unless there’s more expansive and integrated support for the “digital copy” feature as well — where an iPhone/iPod version of the movie is included on the disk — it’s not really an iPhone friendly addition.

Also rumored were some kind of Twitter/Facebook/Last.fm social features.

Last year Apple debuted iTunes 8 at their annual iTunes and iPod music event in September (after it was heavily leaked by Kevin Rose). If there is an iTunes 9 on the roadmap, makes sense we’d see it this September along with the rumored iPod touch 3,1.

Anyone more interested in it now?

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

iTunes 9 to Add iPhone App Organizer, Blu-Ray?