Navigation
Over here at Best App Site we pride ourselves in bringing you the best Apps on the market. Because of the nature of business, most Apps that are really good cost something. Before you fill our email box I know that there are a ton of Apps out there that are awesome and are free but most of those Apps are developed by large corporations like Facebook, or Google. That said, Navfree is the BEST free Navigation App that I have ever seen. One of our readers Bryce Allaire suggested this App to us, and I want to say thanks to Bryce for that! This App has most of the features that our favorite paid navigation App Navigon has, with the great price point of Free. If you've been looking for a turn by turn navigation App but haven't wanted to shell out the money, read on, this might be the App for you.
Almost Everything You'd Want
When I first fired up Navfree I wasn't expecting much more than a map that offered turn by turn directions. What I found was a really full featured App that had some things that I would consider must have's in a $30-$50 Nav App, but certainly wouldn't have expected them to be housed within a free version. Not only does Navfree offer Google search for points of interest, but it offers Facebook and Twitter location posts as well. There is access to your music right from the home screen, and a 2d option just a tap away. It has a standard navigate to address option, a point of interest option, as well as favorites, and recent destinations. Pretty much everything that you would expect in a turn by turn Nav App. Almost…
There are a few key things either missing all together or rough around the edges. First, there is no option to select a contact's address from your contact list. This is big for me because I have tons of contacts that I have yet to visit, however I have their address. I use this feature all of the time in my primary Nav App. The second thing I found a little lacking was the address input. There are times that I know the city, and I know part of the street name, but not all of it. Or sometimes I know the city and the street name but not exactly how to spell it. My favorite Nav App allows me to input the City name and as I'm typing the street name will show me all of the streets that start with that particular letter. This is huge for me because (and this is bad I know) I never really listen fully to people when they give me directions or addresses. If I do, I rarely ever write them down. So what usually happens is I remember kind of what the street name is but not exactly. You can see how this can lead to a problem. In Navfree's defense, it's free! If Navfree was what I was using on a day to day basis for navigation, I would probably start listening and writing down addresses. A couple of things Noted by Bryce who recommended this App to us. First, Bryce says that it didn't include any highway direction. It tells you that you're on highway i75 for example, but not in which direction you're going on that highway (it does however have a compass built in so I don't think this would be too big of a problem). Second, Bryce says that it doesn't know all of the toll roads. I can't confirm this as we don't have any toll roads in Cincinnati, but in my testing the App knew all of the road names around here so that was a positive sign.
Ads
You didn't think you get everything for free did you? Navfree has in App advertising in the form of banners. The good news? With an in App purchase for only $3.99 you can get rid of those ads.
Perfect for you?
Is this App the perfect Navigation App? Nope. It is however the absolute best one for free that I've found. If you are dead set on not paying $30-$50 for a turn by turn Nav App, but still want to know where you're going, Navfree is for you. All I would recommend is this; be sure to write all of your addresses down so you can fill them in to the App.
You can get Navfree for the iPhone from the iTunes store for free here: 
You can get Navfree for the iPad from the iTunes store for free here:
I love the Google maps application that comes preinstalled on the iPhone. Since Google powers it, it’s always updated, and almost always correct. That being said, I really, really like the CoPilot Live App. There is something to be said for a dedicated turn by turn, voice guided App. This App packs all of the things that you would expect from a GPS App, and more. It’s the “more” that earns it a place on the Best App Site, and a place in my navigation folder on my iPhone.
What you would expect
There are some things that a turn-by-turn GPS must have to make it functional. It must have an easy to use, easy to read interface. It must offer 3d as well as 2d driving modes. It absolutely has to have favorites, home, work, address, and points of interest (POI) options for destination input. I expect that the App will have the option of at bare minimum, walking as well as driving if not expanded beyond that to different types of vehicles. The App should allow you to access your contacts to obtain their addresses to use as destinations, it should also allow you to input intersecting streets. CoPilot does all of these things and more!
Upon launching the App you are greeted with a cheerful voice welcoming you to CoPilot live. You are then presented with a screen of options, your places, destination, quick stops, and more. Tapping any of these buttons will bring up a new menu easily, and quickly walking you through getting your destination chosen and you on your way. If you have used any kind of GPS interface, be it an App on your iPhone or a stand along GPS unit, you will feel right at home in this App. The GPS is quick to fix on your location even under cloudy conditions, and in my time testing this App the signal never dropped, ever. Once a destination has been chosen and you are under way on your trip, the turn-by-turn directions are timely, and precise. As with most others, this App gives you your next turn direction as well as distance from that turn on the lower left side of the screen.
What I love
For me, I expect my GPS App to do multiple things. While I’m driving I often times connect to my radio via Bluetooth and listen to music off of my iPhone through my speakers, so when I saw that CoPilot has a music option, I was excited. This means that I can use my phone for music as I have been doing while I’m also using it for GPS. Sure, CoPilot is iOS 4.2 compatible (meaning it can run in the background while I’m using other applications) but if I use the built in music section of the App, when I’m approaching turns, lane changes, or my destination I have control over how the App handles the music. I can instruct the App to simply play the directions at the same level as the music, I can have the App lower the music level so the directions can be heard better, or I can tell the App not to voice the directions at all.
Built in search is very, very important to me. Often times I’m on my way to a destination and I realize that I have forgotten something, or maybe I want to stop for a bite to eat at a specific place. In version 8 (the current version) of CoPilot you receive a live local search option absolutely free. This is great! In previous versions it wasn’t free, so this is a big improvement on the App.
Often times when I’m driving in unfamiliar locations I get confused (even with a GPS) as to which lane goes where, both on the highway and when making turns on regular roads. Enter Lane assistance, and Clear turn by CoPilot. These two features are great! They give you a 3d view of what the lanes actually look like, and which one you should be on! This is one of the features that Terry loves about his favorite App Navigon which he reviewed here and now it’s also standard on the CoPilot live.
Another huge feature on CoPilot live is the speed limit warning. This warning is user customizable, meaning you can have it alert you when you’re so many MPH over (user defined MPH over), or turn it off entirely. This is great for me where I live. Here in Ohio we have long stretches of “country” roads where the speed limit is 45-55MPH then out of nowhere a small town comes into view where the speed limit is down to 35 or even 25. CoPilot live will alert you before you ever get close to the town. It’s a great feature to have and I can tell you it’s saved my butt a couple of times.
A couple of things to improve upon
Unlike the Navigon App that I mentioned earlier, CoPilot Live is not a universal binary. This means that you have to pay twice for this App if you want to have it on your iPhone, and iPad. I prefer universal binaries because I don’t like to have to keep track of two different versions of the same App in my iTunes library.
Second, to cancel a route, you have to dig a couple of menus in. There isn’t a place on the main screen or the menu screen. You have to go to menu-plan or edit trip-options then you can clear it. That’s way too much work. I want to hit menu and have a “cancel route” option.
Lastly is the way that you shut the App down. When you close out of it, the App doesn’t actually close. It’s still running in the background. This is great if you’re doing something else while in route to your destination, and want the GPS to run in the background. This isn’t so good however if you just want to close the App. I have found that if you don’t have a route programmed and you hit the home button to put the App in the background, it will close automatically after a few minutes. I want a button in the menu to exit the App.
Great App
Overall CoPilot Live is a great App, I wouldn’t be talking about it if it weren’t. It has a lot of features that I really like, and it works really well. If you’re in the market for a GPS App, CoPilot should at least get a second look from you. You just may find that you love it!
You can get CoPilot live North America for your iPhone for $19.99 here from the
You can get Copilot Live North America for your iPad for $24.99 here from the
I'm thrilled to see so many choices in Turn-by-Turn navigation Apps for the iPhone. Being an early adopter of a few of these Apps and still really loving the Navigon App, I know that it's fierce competition in this market that makes it great for all of us. However, what do you do when someone offers Turn-by-Turn navigation for FREE? Hmmm. Well that's exactly what Mapquest Mobile has done! Now you have to keep in mind the difference here between an App like Navigon Mobile Navigator and Mapquest. Besides the price, Navigon includes the maps in the App itself. So no internet connection is required to use it. However, with Mapquest it's pulling everything in from the internet as you drive. For urban areas, that's probably not a problem, but for areas where you might lose your data signal you would also lose your navigation. Rather than go on and on about this App myself, I'd rather turn you over to the review that my buddy Jack Beckman wrote here. This is his first Navigation App for the iPhone and he compares it with his Garmin Nuvi 765t. See Jack's full review here.
Get it here:
by Mordy Golding
I do enough traveling to have been named a Road Warrior by American Way Magazine, back in 2006. I'm also Jewish (Orthodox) and eat kosher. Put the two together and the result is me usually trying to figure out where I can grab a bite to eat as I travel the world. There's a great kosher restaurant database that you can find and search through at www.shamash.org, but the folks at Rusty Brick have created an app called Kosher which taps into the power of your iPhone.
The Kosher app is actually linked to the shamash.org database, so the listings are current, and when you launch the Kosher app, it connects to the database to update all listings. In the Kosher app, you can choose to either search for a specific restaurant, or my favorite feature — click the Find Near Me button. After detecting your GPS location, the Kosher app will list any kosher restaurants or food establishments in your vicinity. You'll get exact distances from where you are, basic information such as kosher certification (hashgacha), price, and even rating and comments from other travelers. With a single click you can call the restaurant or get a location and directions with Google maps.
Although I'm a fan of GPS devices in general and couldn't live without GPS navigation, I have resisted buying a car kit. I've resisted these gadgets for one reason and one reason only, I believe they are generally overpriced ($129.99). Don't get me wrong, I believe they are working great and definitely improve GPS reception for navigation apps on the iPhone, it's just that at the current price it's hard to justify a car kit that basically goes for the same price as a full blown (low end) GPS unit. With that said, I'm not opposed to reviewing one if a company is generous enough to send me one and Magellan is just that kind of company 
If a picture is worth a thousand words, what's a video worth?…
I've tried a lot of different movie showtime apps! I do really like the features in Flixter, i.TV and the others. However, recently I went back to the first Movie Showtimes App I ever used.
It wasn't long ago that I reviewed the TomTom Navigation App for the iPhone. At the time the only other app that I had to compare it with was the Navigon app, which came out first. When the TomTom app came out it really wasn't any better than the Navigon app. Sure there are some things that were nicer like more POIs, but overall the app had basically the same major limitations as the Navigon app. Well Navigon has released two updates since then and in the latest update they gave us TTS (Text to Speech) so that when you're approaching a turn it says the name of the street that you're about to turn on. This plus integrated iPod controls an automatic day/night mode and a few other fixes plus a cheaper retail price makes Navigon my app of choice. Check out the Navigon app here on the App Store:
One of the things that I had originally dinged Navigon for in their GPS turn-by-turn navigation app was the lack of Text-to-Speech (TTS). This is the feature that tells you the name of the street you're about to turn on. ie. "Turn right on Maple Street". Well to keep the pressure on TomTom and others, Navigon just released their update as promised. They also added an Automatic Day/Night adjustment for adjusting the display for the time of day.
Now let's have Traffic Support and we'll be really good to go!
Navigon also recently announced that they were developing their own "car kit." Although the TomTom car kit seems that it will do more and offer the much needed GPS signal boost. Not to mention that the TomTom one will work with other apps besides TomTom (like the Navigon app). Both car kits are slated to ship in October. In the meantime I'm using this iPhone Vent Mount.
The Navigon app is now $69.99 and available here from the App Store.
One of the most anticipated 3rd party apps for the iPhone is here! A few weeks back I reviewed the first full featured turn-by-turn stand alone navigation app for the iPhone – the Navigon App. See that review here. Navigon kinda stole TomTom's thunder a little by being first to market. However, before I passed judgement (and recommend it) I wanted to see the TomTom app.
First off, like I said in my last review, I had no idea how much these apps were going to cost but the $69.99 introductory price seemed high to me. Well now that price seems like a bargain! The TomTom app came out at the full $99.99 price for the US/Canada version. I'm going to put aside the price right now and concentrate on the features of the app. We'll get back to the price at the end.
It works!
The TomTom app performs as I would have expected it to. The apps starts up a little slower than the Navigon app, but otherwise is very snappy. I must say that I like the layout and number of options in the TomTom app menus over that of the Navigon app. Also Navigon has an annoying habit of using really small fonts, the TomTom screens are very easy to read.
Points of Interest (POIs) also load very very quickly. I was stunned by the number of voices available in this app. You can have just about any voice you want including several just in the US language alone both male and female. No custom voices though.
See it in action
Rather than trying to explain how the app works, I recorded this video of a live demo of the TomTom app. Check it out. Caution: some parts are shaky.
One of the apps I had been looking for was an App that would find the mid-point between two people for meetings. One of my blog readers pointed me to Midway, which was my iPhone App of the Week a couple of months ago. I really like Midway, however the one thing it was missing was the ability to enter a manual address. Well now I've found a new App called MeetMe that works just the way I want it to.
The concept is simple. You either use your current location, an address from one of your Contacts or an address that you enter manually as your Point A and Point B locations.
Then you choose a category for the type of meeting location that you want to meet at. MeetMe will then propose a list of locations between Point A and Point B.
