My earlier review of the MotionX GPS Drive app was a positive one with a caveat about poor network coverage being a deal breaker. I also mentioned that, “I’m not sure how the app would work without all the included features of Live Voice Guidance,“ which is offered free for the first 30 days.
Without Live Voice Guidance
After my 30 days of Live Voice Guidance ran out I didn’t renew because I wanted to see how the app would perform with out it. My first thoughts after using the app:
- Confusing
- Manual changing of turn data
- Static display data for turns
- Display didn’t reroute when I altered my course
- The iPod control would only play one song of a playlist
A Short Summary of My Trip
I was headed to the Dentist office and plugged in the address. The app wanted to add Live Voice Guidance, which I declined, and started driving. I was sort of confused about the up and down arrows on the left side of the screen so I pushed the up arrow to see what would happen. As my focus was on driving, I didn’t have time to check out what the problem was until I came to a red traffic light. Below you can see the two screen shots captured off my iPhone. (click picture to see full size)
It dawned upon me that I wasn’t on turn 2 of 8, so I switched to the list view and realized the display should have been on turn 5 of 8 because I was just getting ready to turn right onto US-2 East.
That’s when I realized the the up and down arrows were used for manually changing the turn data at the top of the screen. Whew! What can I say, I’m a slow learner.
During the next stretch of road I had 7.1 miles of highway to observe the display, but after 3 miles I noticed the display was still reading 7.1 miles. By looking at the display I couldn’t tell how far to my next turn.
I decided to change things up and take a slightly different route to the Dentist’s office. However the route didn’t change, yet I distinctly remember that with Live Voice Guidance the app would automatically reroute without intervention. They say memory is the second thing to go when you start to get old. 
Because I didn’t notice the Re-Route button at the time, I had to manually use the Go To menu and re-select the Dentist’s office from my Contacts list and restart the navigation. My bad. 
( What’s wrong with me?) Afterward I went back to my last post to verify there was no such button with the Live Voice Guidance. Bingo! I was right.
The last thing I did on my trip was to fire up the iPod controls to listen to some music, but the playlist stopped after the first song and I found myself listening to silence. So I went back into the app’s iPod controls and restarted the playlist on the second song. After that song finished playing the music stopped again, and that’s when I noticed the message “No Playlist Selected” and realized that Live Voice Guidance had struck again. You simply can’t be driving and restarting your playlist after each song, it’s not safe. (Solution below)
Once again I had to go back and review what was included in Live Voice Guidance.
Setting the Record Straight
I realize now that using the app with Live Voice Guidance for the first 30 days had me spoiled. I got use to the live voice announcements, real-time updating of your positional data, automatic re-routing of alternate routes, and iPod integration.
After doing some testing, the Re-Route button works as indicated. If you vary from your route all you have to do is manually press the Re-Reroute button and you get a revised routing to your final destination.
I don’t recommend using the iPod controls in this app when you don’t have Live Voice Guidance. A work-around for using the iPod is to start your playlist BEFORE you start the MotionX GPS Drive app. Then your songs will will cycle through as expected.
The deal breaker for me is not having real-time updating of your position. As I’ve stated before, the map is not that great so you really have a dismal experience trying to constantly keep an eye on the screen to figure out when to turn.
Voice announcements aside, with real-time updating the heading information is sufficient to update you on what’s happening.
The Bottom Line
I won’t be using this app without paying for the Live Voice Guidance because a navigation app really needs real-time updating of information. It’s extremely helpful to know if your next freeway exit is 2 or 3 miles ahead so you can get across 5 lanes of traffic.
Since I have the Tom Tom app, and paid dearly for it, the MotionX GPS app will probably be regulated to the odd times when I need to use the navigation manually and /or the compass feature, which is really cool.
If you need a GPS app for your iPhone, the MotionX GPS Drive app is still a really cheap option. It’s in the iTunes app store for $0.99 USD. Live Voice Guidance is only $2.30 per month, pre-paid and well worth the money should you need to use this app frequently.
Update
As I was preparing to publish this post an update became available for the MotionX GPS Drive app. There’s a new menu interface (see pic to right, click to enlarge) that’s totally different and there is also support for landscape view.
If you’re going to purchase the app or just want to know more about its functionality, their web site has a new manual that is worth reviewing online or downloading in PDF format.
Caveat: The manual describes functionality as if you have Live Voice Guidance.
If you need a GPS app this is as good as any, if you have Live Voice Guidance and good network coverage.
Hopefully my experience without the Live Voice Guidance will help you understand the differences with the manual version. Or you can simply use Google Maps.
Related posts:
- MotionX GPS Drive App Review
- The GPS
- Garmin GPS and Tom Tom App Comparison
- Switching to Push Email, Calendars, Contacts for the iPhone
- iPad First Impressions – Apps Decoded
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I used the MotionX GPS Drive app with live guidance on a recent trip, and I wasn’t satisfied. I knew enough about where I was going to know that MotionX GPS was telling me to go in a direction that didn’t make sense. For example, I knew a friend’s house was northwest of where I was driving, but I didn’t know the actual directions so I was relying on MotionX. However, it told me to exit on a highway going east. There was more than one occasion that I ended up stopping, looking up directions on Google Maps and using those directions instead.
I tried next to each other TomTom, Navigon, ATT and MotionX. With the new version 3.0 this application is clearly the best. TomTom and Navigon are very poor. People keep on thinking that they are good. that’s because they are old. It like people thinking that Windows Vista is good….