Ok here is the low down. I really like GPS. I remember discovering Telenav for the Blackberry. This was before GPS was built into the mobile your mother uses. I still had to buy a GPS puck. Yes remember those. Well only good things followed. I have used that service all over the world. I still remember getting my AT&T bill when we returned from Europe 2 years ago. Boy did I love reading my WSJ.com and sending e-mail until I saw the $600 at the bottom.
So any how Telenav finally release Telenav for the iPhone 3.0 OS.
What follows is my post on the Telenav forums.
“I am so sad. I had Telenav on my Blackberry Curve. How awesome was that. Since last October I have been using an iPhone. Finally the day arrives. Telenav for the iPhone. Finally. Oh but wait. What? No its not possible.
See the sad story below.
- No iPhone contacts integration (Gokivo’s iPhone app has this)
- No ability to listen to music while driving (Gokivo’s iPhone app has this)
- Ok I take the above point back slightly. You can start your iPod application and then start the navigator. The music will keep playing and be interrupted by the voice directions. This work around does work but you don’t have iPod control aka volume, skip, etc.
- No audio source control built in. I stream my music via A2DP Bluetooth into my aux port hence I listen to my music / navigation thru the aux channel on my car audio. Thats great right. Well not exactly as if I want to listen to the navigation direction via the iPhone speakers so I can listen to the plain old radio I have to disable Bluetooth streaming by going into settings and basically un-pairing the A2DP adaptor I have in my car. PITA. What would be much better is if like every other application that streams audio you could select the audio source in the app itself. Another reason why I think this app was rushed out with AT&T pressure because every other app including Pandora / Slacker / iPod all have it built in.
- No ‘wide screen view’
- Maps load slowly. No Google Maps goodness here.
- No ability to add to iPhone contacts from inside the nav application. Yes you can add to favorites but this does not make that info available to other applications outside of navigator like Google Maps when I have reached my destination.
These are not “Apple” restrictions. These are self imposed Telenav restrictions. Everyone else has mastered these hurdles with the exception of Telenav.
So what does it do well.
- When you make a phone call it returns to the app and recalculates. However this is a native iPhone OS functionality in OS 3.0 and has nothing to do with Telenav being clever. So I am being nice here.
- The directions were clear and concise
- The graphical representation was clear. Nothing special by iPhone standards but clear & bright.
- Search worked well
- Application performance was acceptable
- Found GPS lock points quickly. No complaints here.
- Sync with myTelenav worked as expected.
Some might say I am being brutal in my review but to be honest this an application you rent (not own) for $120 per year. I expect the latest and greatest with subscriptions and on the iPhone I expect iPhone goodness. I expect to see developers bumping up against the Apple imposed restrictions like not backgrounding etc. My issues with this application have nothing to do with this. This apps failings have nothing to do with Apple and everything to do with Telenav rushing an unfinished application to market because of AT&T pressure. Come on Telenav.
You can do better than this.”
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