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New Google Navigation on my S4


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Old 19-07-2013, 19:34
Thine Wonk
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What have Google done?

I'm really not liking google lately, Reader and Listen no longer supported and now they've completely ruined Google Navigation.

It now asks where you want to leave from and doesn't give you the option to default or press the compass symbol for my current location. When I search for places it returns nothing and the whole interface looks like it's from Windows phone.

I guess I'll be moving over to an alternative as it's unusable at the moment, thanks Google for moving me off your 3rd service now.

Would you like to ruin Chrome or Gmail next, or Google search?
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Old 19-07-2013, 19:42
Thine Wonk
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Ok it's not that dreadful, it's a bug. It wouldn't do anything even after a phone restart and would return no results until I went back and re-accepted the terms, now it's working and I kind of don't mind the new interface.

What does everyone else think of the new Navigation?
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Old 19-07-2013, 19:42
enapace
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What have Google done?

I'm really not liking google lately, Reader and Listen no longer supported and now they've completely ruined Google Navigation.

It now asks where you want to leave from and doesn't give you the option to default or press the compass symbol for my current location. When I search for places it returns nothing and the whole interface looks like it's from Windows phone.

I guess I'll be moving over to an alternative as it's unusable at the moment, thanks Google for moving me off your 3rd service now.

Would you like to ruin Chrome or Gmail next, or Google search?
I haven't tried it recently I will try it next time I'm out I normally use tom tom app. Sorry to hear about this though as I know a lot love google maps.

Update good to hear you managed to get back working hope it continues to for you.
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Old 19-07-2013, 19:47
Thine Wonk
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The menu button on your device no longer does anything in favour of a stupid menu icon on the left, how silly!

It's really, really fiddly to find menus like muting the voice guidance as there is no menu displayed on screen and the menu button doesn't work.

Navigation had never crashed for years, but has several times today. Added to that you cannot clear your history, so now if you didn't want to show somebody where you'd been you can't and it'll display on screen if they see it in the dock.

I hate the fact google remembers everything and insists on displaying it in your navigation history and you can't clear it easily. I want to have favourites and choose what's in the list, or at least let me remove items from the recent list.

So many things I don't like about the new update. It is good that it shows roadwork information, but that's all I like so far.
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Old 19-07-2013, 19:50
denyo1977
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On the Nexus 4 during navigation you have got an on screen menu button to mute the voice.
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Old 19-07-2013, 19:51
enapace
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The menu button on your device no longer does anything in favour of a stupid menu icon on the left, how silly!

It's really, really fiddly to find menus like muting the voice guidance as there is no menu displayed on screen and the menu button doesn't work.
That is odd I can't wait till I can get rid of the annoying black bar on my HTC one when I finally get the 4.2.2 update from Three.
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Old 19-07-2013, 19:55
IslandNiles
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The menu button on your device no longer does anything in favour of a stupid menu icon on the left, how silly!

It's really, really fiddly to find menus like muting the voice guidance as there is no menu displayed on screen and the menu button doesn't work.
Dedicated menu buttons like the ones Samsung persist with are outside the Android design guidelines. They want app developers to use the three-dot button to bring up on-screen menus.

I'm not sure if it's the same on Android, but on iOS the option to mute the voice guidance is right there when you press the on-screen menu button (three dots at the bottom right of the screen) during navigation.
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Old 19-07-2013, 20:06
Thine Wonk
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So you can no longer get to the main settings when you have a location programmed in, but you can get to the mute navigation etc, you have to press the X to close the route then use the dashes to use the menu.

If you do want to turn off voice guidance you must be in the navigation screen, but you can't get to any other settings. If you move or preview the route it's not possible to mute or get to any settings what so ever without clicking resume. It crashes, and you don't seem to be able to set favourites or control the history in any way on the search page.
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Old 19-07-2013, 20:12
IslandNiles
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Re your point in the opening post about it wanting you to search rather than use your location. If you just press the Directions button with a blank search bar, does it not default to your location as the starting point?
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Old 19-07-2013, 20:30
Thine Wonk
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Re your point in the opening post about it wanting you to search rather than use your location. If you just press the Directions button with a blank search bar, does it not default to your location as the starting point?
It does now, but it kept opening up on the go from and go to page and wouldn't search anything. I had to press back and re-accept the terms that I had already accepted and now it does work the way you describe.
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Old 19-07-2013, 20:35
IslandNiles
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It does now, but it kept opening up on the go from and go to page and wouldn't search anything. I had to press back and re-accept the terms that I had already accepted and now it does work the way you describe.
Ah right. I'm only guessing at stuff because I use the iOS version, but I think they're very similar now.
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Old 19-07-2013, 20:38
pi r squared
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Re your point in the opening post about it wanting you to search rather than use your location. If you just press the Directions button with a blank search bar, does it not default to your location as the starting point?
I think that problem solved itself when Thine Wonk did a reboot of the phone/reset of the app.

With regards to the app in general, I think it's generally an improvement on what it was before. I do not like the new colour scheme - seriously, Google, you saw the flak that Apple got for recolouring motorways orange in iOS Maps, and now you're doing the same? Outstanding. Also, the route preview is less accessible (used to be accessible by pressing the "time remaining" button; now it's two touches away) and less clear - it was easy to see yellow and red traffic zones in contrast to the green, now it's more tricky to discern the colours amongst the kind of translucent blue they use for "no traffic" instead of green.

Apart from that, though, the interface is much cleaner, and the instructions are much clearer now that roundabouts have an indicator of the direction of the exit rather than just one picture kind of suggesting "straight on" all the time. There seems to be more info appearing on there without it appearing too cluttered - I think they've done a good job there. You can always mute and unmute with the volume controls so I'm not fussed about the location of that option having been moved, and exiting and then resuming navigation is now much quicker as it can resume a previous route (assuming you're still on it), as opposed to having to recalculate a route from scratch like previously.

Incidentally I've been using it at least twice a day for the last week or so, and not experienced a single crash. It might be a device issue rather than a Maps issue, maybe?
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Old 19-07-2013, 21:01
IslandNiles
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^^^

Yeah, I don't like the new colour scheme that they've implemented across the apps and the website. I don't mind the orange motorways in particular, but I think it's less clear now that there are only three colours for all roads.
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Old 19-07-2013, 21:06
Thine Wonk
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Incidentally I've been using it at least twice a day for the last week or so, and not experienced a single crash. It might be a device issue rather than a Maps issue, maybe?
Well that might be the case, but nothing else ever crashes. I don't like muting and unmuting the device as I listen to music through it when in the car, but I want the navigation muted.

I think it'll be a case of when I get used to it I'll like it more, but the menus are a bit weird initially.
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Old 20-07-2013, 12:24
!!11oneone
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I think it's great. They've got rid of the two major annoyances for me:

1. The colours made it hard to see your route during navigation, because the route line was the same colour as the motorway and rivers.

2. Approaching roundabouts, it always used to have a 'straight on' symbol just indicating the roundabout but not the direction. If you needed to be in the correct lane, it was often impossible to know which lane without manually manipulating the map to see the route (dangerous) or waiting until last minute (dangerous). Now it tells you which way you're going at an upcoming roundabout.

Plus the colours are clearer, it's easier to select a contact address and it suggests nearby places you might want routes to. It's excellent.
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Old 20-07-2013, 13:03
pi r squared
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Yeah, I don't like the new colour scheme that they've implemented across the apps and the website. I don't mind the orange motorways in particular, but I think it's less clear now that there are only three colours for all roads.
Indeed. I think I can probably get used to it, it just feels... wrong, I guess, almost as if Google have gone "this is how we colour roads in the US, so you can have the same". That having been said, if we weren't so accustomed to "British" road colouring, I would probably like the colour system as it's aesthetically pleasing. However, we're British: motorways are blue!

Well that might be the case, but nothing else ever crashes.
Ordinarily I guess my next suggestion would be to clear app data and cache, but since I believe you've already done this, I don't know what's causing your issues.
I don't like muting and unmuting the device as I listen to music through it when in the car, but I want the navigation muted.
Fair enough. Do you get the three-dot menu button sat on the bottom bar along with the X button and the time remaining display, or does that disappear because you've got a hardware menu button? If it's there, then Mute is just a touch of that and then "Mute Voice Guidance" away, so technically the same number of taps as previously.
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Old 20-07-2013, 14:45
chenks
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i've found a strange annoyance when using the new navigation today.
started navigation fine and off i went.
i got a notification from another app, swiped down to go into that app, navigation still running fine in the background etc.

close that app and go back into navigation and it takes me to the "select destination" screen with no apparent way to get back to the live navigation - which is still running in the background and giving me directions.

even swiping down, i still see the active navigation route but selecting that still takes me to the "select destination" screen.

i couldn't find any way to get back to the live navigation map, so i had to select the destination again and let it find the route again.
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Old 20-07-2013, 14:53
tealady
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The menu button on your device no longer does anything in favour of a stupid menu icon on the left, how silly!
I noticed that. Assumed it was something to do with cm10 rather than the app.
The icon on the left seemed to be hanging half off the side.
Where is the +/- icon to change the size?
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