Sat Nav App recommendations

Does anyone regularly use a sat nav app that’s not Google Maps or Waze?

Im looking for something to try out on my next road trip. Im using iOS

Apple Maps is great (in the UK), and much kinder to your battery

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I’ve got a Garmin Sat Nav but I’m thinking of just sticking with my phone this time around. It’s good to know that the native maps app is battery friendly.

Im actually travelling back to where I grew up, lived there for 25 years but I’ve been away for 15 years now and there’s a hell of a lot of new things popped up in that time. I just want to avoid wasting time looking for place names that i am unfamiliar with, things like retail parks, etc…

I have a Garmin already but find it hassle keep locking it away, etc. Would rather just utilise my phone holder for the first time in a long while

OsmAnd? Depends how good the OpenStreetMap is around your location though.

Honestly, apple maps is pretty good, I don’t use third party ones thesedays

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Just noticed that Apple Maps takes data from Tom Tom, amongst others… that’ll do for me

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Just to say that when it comes to having an up to date map, of the three apps I use (Google, Waze, and Apple) Apple are by far the slowest to update road changes.

Some roads near me changed in terms of becoming dead ends, and becoming one way in August. Waze updated their map overnight on the day it happened, Google took about a week, but by December, neither Apple nor TomTom had updated their maps. And that includes an actual map update from TomTom in that time.

Which is only possible if you know the roads have changed. If you don’t, out of date maps (whether sat nav or paper) aren’t going to help.

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I too will point out some advice that I’m presuming you don’t already know before going on to say that Apple Maps is great for the vast majority of people. If you have a car with CarPlay it’s even nicer.

Happy and safe travels!!

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I’ll second this. Burn the same applies to Google Maps and Waze :+1:

Apple Maps is honestly very good these days, but some point later this year they are switching over to their own data for the UK which, if their switchover in the US is any yardstick, should make it even better.

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For my use case (commuting) I always used Waze as I found it has the best traffic info.

If I was navigating somewhere I didn’t know I’d normally use Google Maps as it’s search and listings are second to none.

I haven’t tried Apple Maps in a while as I found the data lacking. The maps themselves were okay. It was more the listings that were either outdated or inaccurate. This could have changed over time but it may be dependent on where you are.

When Apple finally launch their new maps in the UK I’ll definitely be giving it another try.

Isn’t Waze a Google product now?

Not sure how they share data - I know Waze has functionality to mark incidents / cameras, etc and Google does not, but I thought they shared the same overall traffic data?

Personally I’ve preferred google (ideally with CarPlay if the car has it) - I’ve found it’s rerouting ability really great, as well as adding stop off points mid journey.

I decided to get a USB C power delivery plug for the phone when in car which was a good combo for phone as sat nav and fast charging.

Google does this, on iOS at any rate.

One thing I’ve noticed is that while Waze seems to always get the speed limit right, Google sometimes gets it wrong. I’d have thought that Google would have access to Waze speed limit data. Especially as they put Waze incident data on the map.

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I dunno, sometimes I’ve thrown myself completely to mercy of Waze and it’s taken me on some pretty neat back routes, that I would never have discovered otherwise.

I like to have some idea of where my destination is but, as long as the route looks vaguely sensible on the overview, I’m usually happy to roll with whatever the sat nav suggests.

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Why aren’t you looking at using Google Maps or Waze?

Google bought Waze a fair few years ago, hence why more of Wazes features are slowly creeping into Google Maps.

Waze has a brilliant community, and is super helpful in regards to pushing detours to your device if there’s a traffic jam ahead. All of the traffic reports and camera data amongst other things are pushed from Waze to Google. Waze has the majority of those data points primarily fed into it, while Google typically pulls that data into its own system.

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Ooh I think that’s new, or at least I’ve not noticed that button before (though with Lockdown I think I’ve used the car three times since March…)

Thanks for the pointer!

Genuinely curious as to the use of data scenarios with Google Maps/Waze (same thing). Anyone given any consideration to that?

Just get an A-Z.

My whole childhood I navigated the country using one of these. If a 7 year old can use it, so can everyone else!

Realistically, in 2020, I just use Google Maps to map out the route in my head then use Google or Apple Maps to actually navigate if needed.