For a good few months now, Google Navigation has been available in the UK. For free. When this was first announced, it wiped substantial value off the shares of TomTom, Garmin, et al - it was a big deal. The fact that your new phone could well come with built in satnav - for free - would probably be enough to sway people away from other smartphones, yet I've not actually seen it be mentioned, with adverts and descriptions instead concentrating on such "epic" features as social networking and the fact that a contact's latest Facebook update appears on screen when they ring. Really, who gives a toss about that - I'd rather know my new phone was coming with free satnav.

I guess the Android critics may well chime in and say that Google Navigation is shit, and I'll grant that it's perhaps not as polished as some of the top end sat nav devices, but ultimately it has got me to every place I've asked it to and isn't that the goal of a satnav app? The voice is robotic and mispronounces some town names (but then so do humans - how do you pronounce "Shrewsbury"?), but still the text-to-speech is more handy than it is not. But it's the sheer ease of use that makes me wonder how people can fail to advertise it: it is so simple. I had a meeting at Firdale PDC, Corby a while ago and it was saved in my (Google) calendar as exactly that - no street name or postcode. It was literally as simple as bringing up the event, clicking on the location, and hitting 'Navigate' and I was on my way there - this is the sort of integration and simplicity-of-use that Apple have (rightly) prided themselves on for years.

Yet barely any features list seems to mention it. Anyone know the reason?

Because they make other flavours and do not want to lose friends?

Many Nokia phones also give free Sat Nav and lifetime map updates with Ovi Maps.
I assume even better than google maps

I am an Android user and fan and even I don't think the navigation is quite polished or advanced enough to truly be a selling point.

Nokia Maps is in another league, it is excellent, allows maps to be cached to memory, and it now appears to be free on many of its phones.

Once something is free for long enough, it loses it's value. Google give away the os, the nav, and all of a sudden it's not a valuable commodity. HTC bring out new android handsets every other week, your new shiny handset loses its cachet and some value. This is how their system will work. This doesn't tie in with long service contracts very well, sadly, but it explains why i sold my old iPhone 3G 8gb for £130 this week - how many mobile handsets are worth that much after 2 years of being well-used? A handset i got for nothing a couple of years ago because i paid full price for an iPhone 2g at launch. Excluding service charges (£40 a month) i have spent a grand total of £300 on apple iPhone hardware in 3 years. It's a different model of business altogether.

Also, aren't device updates over the air from the manufacturers, so they're reliant on htc feeling like pushing out new map updates? When you own copilot or tom-tom, no such problem, they are ready when they're ready and you get them.

Some of us use our phones as phones, not investments (that are always behind in hardware, save for a few small things, and can't get a signal when held "improperly"). I'd rather have true leading edge hardware now (not the iPhone 4) and let it slip back slowly. If I can't get a good price when I replace it, I don't care. I'll keep it and use it for something.

I can get £70 for my old 4 year old commodity Nokia on one of the "we'll buy your phone" sites. If I eBayed it it might go for even more. It invalidates your argument somewhat.

Google is entirely responsible for the Navigation application and maps updates for it. HTC or the manufacturer is only responsible for OS updates.

There is of course nothing stopping you buying a competing navigation application (an entirely free app market helps in this - I wonder whether Apple will extinguish the competition if they make their own alternative, it has happened before) if you feel that Google's offering is poor.

As has been mentioned, I dont think its polished enough to be considered a major selling point yet. In the main though, I think its just a matter of priorities. Phone manufacturers want to list features unique to their own phones not list common features available on rivals.

Ah, yes, I was planning on mentioning Ovi Maps in my original post - again, free satnav yet hardly publicised. I only happen to know it exists because of comments on here.

As for losing friends, they promote other things that are specifically Android, or even specifically HTC such as the Friend Stream, so I can't see why that would be even a passing thought.


Why is Ovi Maps better, out of interest, aside from being about to cache maps which I don't think is all that useful in this day and age?


Hmm, I disagree. Try telling that to the ever-increasing number of Linux, Open Office, XBMC, Android, etc. users.
HTC's handsets fit different price points and attract different markets. The HTC Desire is still the flagship phone, released in April and unlikely to be usurped by HTC until at least October/November. A new flagship phone every 6 months is really no different from, say, how Nokia used to operate and it never really affected them.
A used Audi is worth more than the equivalent used SEAT, and that's because you have to pay more for it in the first place, and nothing to do with either firm's business models.
But service charges include (or at least subsidise) the cost of the hardware. By that logic, I have spent a grand total of £260 on every phone I've ever owned in my entire life.
Quite the opposite: map updates for Google Navigation are ready quicker than CoPilot or Tom Tom because every search uses the current Google maps - they don't need to be "updated" as such because it uses current data every single time. Businesses that were added yesterday, or five minutes ago for that matter, are searchable the next time you use GMN. No map updates ever.

Ovi Maps feels more polished than Google's effort, has more features (the Android effort seems very basic - does it even re-route based on traffic automatically?) and it seems closer to a more established commercial application (probably because it was once paid-for). The text-to-speech is better too.

Why don't you think caching maps is useful? Are you bathing in 3G coverage, never losing signal?

I've managed to lose 3G signal in the middle of a town, and Google Navigation simply sits there and refuses to do anything until it reconnects. Once EDGE kicks in (due to lack of 3G) it will take a bit longer to warm back up because it has to download the mapping data for whereever I am. EDGE isn't great, GPRS is useless.

On my Nokia, however, things just work. No need for signal (although it helps the GPS fix quicker).

Horses for courses really, my lad uses google maps for day to day stuff and its fine, up in the hills I need something better so use a Garmin 550T for navigation and a SPOT beacon for emergencies.

oh. Only took to post five for the standard jibes then.

And maybe it is not for want of trying but one does think that journalists are not the brightest of chaps.
Tech articles on the radio can be almost stupid in the extreme but they are on 'safe ground'. It gets quite bizarre when the news reader/interviewer usually knows more than the thick 'specialist'.

No, this feature is sadly and annoyingly missing.
Losing signal is inconsequential as the entire journey is cached when it is calculated. So long as you don't step off course, you don't need a 3G signal at all (and I've tested this by having my phone in airplane mode [GPS still works] and doing a 30-odd minute journey without a complaint). I don't understand why you claim GMN just "sits there" without 3G, as it blatantly doesn't.

I understand if you live in the middle of nowhere with sketchy mobile coverage you'd want a better solution, but then would you really waste your money on any smartphone you could barely use because your data connectivity was so poor?


Think you'll find it took to post four, where we got some standard-grade HTC bashing.

You'll have given Apple more than 300 quid as they get a slice of your monthly contract as well - it's why iphone contracts are more expensive for similar tariffs on other makes. Using your logic though I haven't given HTC anything as my Desire was free on a £20pm contract but I take the cost of a mobile phone as the price paid for the handset plus the total cost of the contract so in my case my HTC Desire will cost me £480 in total over the 2 years and as it came sim free and unlocked not bad for a phone with a £479.99 rrp.

BTW HTC don't have anything to do with supplying Google maps or pushing map updates - google maps are retrieved on request by the user and are free on none HTC and none Android phones as well.

O/T: I'd guess at the reasons that Google Maps isn't pushed more is because A) It's not an Android exclusive feature and B) Nokia maps is better as maps are stored on the SD card and don't need a network connection - Google maps is very good, but pretty much useless if you want to get directions in a network dead spot plus eats into your data allowence.

So you don't think that the ability to recalculate is important? If there's a road closure or other reason, I have to wait for it to download new data via GPRS or EDGE if for some reason 3G is unavailable (note that in my example, I said I was in the middle of a town. Where there is usually a nice 3G signal). If I am genuinely lost I'll have to pull over for it to warm up and tell me where to go. GPRS isn't great when it's trying to pull mapping images.

My mobile coverage is fine - it's just there isn't a huge amount of 3G coverage that makes the experience so much better. I would appreciate it if Google would let you cache data.

It's often down to the networks.

A lot of networks have their own navigation software or service that they want to sell you.

As far as I understand it, the huge advantage of Nokia is that it can be used abroad for free. Any Google maps flavour navigation will cost an arm and a leg once you start roaming.

I have seen Google Maps Navigation and I still think they are along way off competitors that only charge like £20 for their software which doesn't require a internet connection all the time.

TBH I'm still happy with my old TomTom 510, does the job

Can't stop the manufacturers themselves promoting it on their own sites, or the networks who don't have their own service (does anyone apart Orange have one?)

I think Vodafone do one.

im considering getting the Desire or the upcoming (maybe) Ace. Is the satnav that bad? also are there any really good satnav apps on android for £20 or so with euro maps?

Navigon is supposed to be good in it's iPhone version, and is cheap i believe.

Yes I do, which is one of the reasons why I often have Navigation running even on journeys I know, just in case I have to reroute. But every time I have needed it to reroute, it has done so quickly and effortlessly, so I can't complain. It downloads vector maps rather than bitmap maps and therefore uses very little data at all.
That is a huge advantage if you're going abroad, yes. Do the worldwide maps not take up a huge chunk of storage space, though?


No, it isn't. I think it's excellent for the reasons detailed in my first post. For the most part the fact that the maps are online not offline is not a problem, and for me the ability to do free text searches or even search-by-voice far outweighs the online/offline issue.

Looks like Google Maps Navigation is still in Beta testing at the moment, which would also explain why it's not being publicised much at the moment.

Ndrive is/was the most competitive paid application.
But there are many flavours of rumour as to why it was culled from the iPhone app store.
Either it removed revenue by Apple for being too competitive or its map data was not unlicensed.

It might mean that the Apple market place is already strategically controlled against consumer's interest.
e.g. A £50 GPS app earns Apple £15 so it might be very costly having an identical app earning Apple only £1.50.

Will we ever know exactly why? My bet is it will return with iAds.
On Android methinks the price will vary so wait for a very decent offer if wanting to buy.

I think that is the key here.

Although it's very good (I use it to drive from around the east Midlands area to south and mid Wales) Google Navigation still needs improvements in certain areas such as the colour scheme - the route you want is in blue and motorways are a very similar purple and this can be confusing if you are long-sighted like me.

I have no idea when Google are planning on releasing the finished product (rumour has it they're still selling advertising space on it, so for example as you go past petrol stations their prices will be available if you click on it etc) but when they do I'll be more than happy to use it as my only satnav.

I have a 30 day trial version of CoPilot on my Legend as well which, although pretty good too, stays in second place when I'm deciding which one to use.