Navigating with Magellan's RoadMate App for iPhone

Figure 1: Magellan RoadMate 2010 USA App

Magellan's RoadMate iPhone App is available in two different versions: a $49.99 USA version, and a $59.99 North America version that adds maps for Canada and Puerto Rico. The Apps are 1.3 GB and 1.4 GB in size, respectively.

Buying and installing the App is simple and straight forward; find the App in Apple's App Store (either by searching for 'Magellan', or browsing the Navigation category), buy the App, and wait for it to finish installing.

Figure 2: Magellan RoadMate App, Main Menu

Tap the Magellan RoadMate icon and wait a few seconds for the app to load. On my iPhone 4, the RoadMate App took around 11 seconds to finish loading, at which point the Main Menu is displayed.

The Main Menu, shown above, presents you with the following options:

• Address - Navigate to a street address
• Points of Interest - Find a business, such a restaurant, gas station, hotel, etc.
• Previous Destinations - Navigate to a previously found destination
• Contacts - Navigate to a contact from your iPhone's address book
• Intersection - Navigate to the intersection of two streets
• Return Home - Navigate to the saved Home address
• City Center - Navigate to the center of a city
• Saved Trips - Start navigating a saved multi-destination trip
• Emergency - Find nearby auto repair shops, police stations, hospitals, and view your current location information

Figure 3: Magellan RoadMate's Map Screen

Whether navigating to a destination or just driving around, you'll spend most of the time with the RoadMate App looking at the map screen, shown above.

Let's take a closer look at the information displayed on the map:

1. Distance and road name for the next maneuver - Tap to repeat last voice instruction
2. Speed Limit Information - Displays the posted speed limit for the road you are traveling on
3. Exit POI - Available only when driving on a highway/freeway/interstate, Exit POI displays a list of nearest highway exit POIs, such as gas stations and restaurants. Great for long trips, this feature makes it easy to see what's available at upcoming highway exits
4. Highlighted Route - The path you should follow
5. Zoom Controls - Zooms in or out on the map
6. Music Player - Lets you play the music stored on your iPhone or iPod while navigating
7. Information Display - Displays various pieces of information. Tapping this box cycles between speed, time of day, elevation, compass direction. While navigating to a destination, tapping this box cycles between displaying distance to destination, estimated time of arrival (ETA), and time remaining.
8. One Touch Menu - Touching this icon displays the OneTouch menu, a customizable list of shortcuts and commonly used addresses or POIs
9. Menu - Returns you to the Main Menu

A well designed map screen is absolutely essential for any GPS navigation system. The map should be easy to understand, display text in a font and size that's readable from the driver's seat, and strike a balance between displaying the information you'll likely care about without becoming too cluttered.

A well designed map should give let the driver get all the information he/she needs within a 1-2 second glance.

Getting the map right is a deal breaker, and Magellan's RoadMate App does an acceptable job. Those you have owned or used a Magellan standalone GPS will find the RoadMate App's map screen quite familiar, as it borrows many of the same elements from the RoadMate PND product line.

Figure 4: Highway Lane Assist

When approaching a highway interchange, the RoadMate App (sometimes) displays the Highway Lane Assist view, shown above. High Lane Assist displays highway signs as you approach an interchange, giving you a clear visual indication of which lane you want to be in.

Highway Lane Assist data wasn't available at all highway intersections. In my area here in the Northeast, Lane Assist seemed to appear at around 40% of highway intersections.

Magellan's Highway Lane Assist feature doesn't look quite as refined as similar features from TomTom or Garmin, but it does help make highway intersections easier to negotiate.

Figure 5: Brand Icons

When navigating with the RoadMate App, restaurants, along with several other Points of Interest (POI) types, are displayed on the map. Additionally, some chains display their company logo on the map. For example, the screenshot above shows a Starbucks Coffee shop as the Starbucks logo on the map. McDonalds, and several other major chains also display brand icons on the map.

Figure 6: 3D Landmarks

When traveling in major cities, some buildings and structures are displayed in detailed 3D, such as the Museum of Natural History in NYC in the screenshot above.

Figure 7: Exit POI

When driving on a highway or major road, the RoadMate App displays the Exit POI icon, shown above. Tapping this icon will display a list of available food, gas, vehicle repair, and lodging options at upcoming highway exits.

Figure 8: Freeway Exit Service

Highway Exit POIs include restaurants, gas stations, car repair facilities and hotels. Freeway Exit POIs can be accessed while on a route or just driving, as long as you are on a highway.

This screen displays a list of the next freeway exits and their distance from your current position, and available POIs.

For example, to see what food options are available at the next exit, tap the food icon on the top row.

This is an especially handy feature for long road trips where you want to look ahead and see what's available at upcoming exits.

Figure 9: Routing Options

Tapping Options on the Address Confirmation screen lets you change the Routing Method.

There are four different "Routing Options" available to choose.

• Fastest Time - The fastest possible route provided the vehicle is able to travel at or near the speed limit.
• Shortest Distance - The shortest possible route.
• Mostly Freeways - Use freeways whenever possible.
• Least Use of Freeways - A route that avoids the highway as much as possible.

The total distance and estimated drive time is listed next to each Routing Option, and a list of all turns for each option can be viewed by tapping the icon on the right.

Depending on where you are and the distance of the trip, choosing a different routing option can have a significant impact on the route. For example, in the screenshot above, a 65 mile trip would take nearly twice as long if I instruct the App to avoid highways.

Figure 10: OneTouch Menu

The OneTouch Menu is a customizable menu that provides quick access to your most frequently used destinations and POI searches. The OneTouch button is available from any screen, including the Map.

Touch the OneTouch icon in the upper-right corner of the screen to access the OneTouch Menu, shown below.

Figure 11: OneTouch Menu

The OneTouch menu can be customized to include your most frequently used destinations. Each button can be assigned a street address, or Point of Interest. Additionally, the icons can be assigned a POI search, such as "Nearest Starbucks Coffee".

The OneTouch Menu comes preconfigured with icons configured to navigate home, fine a gas station, see your current location, and more. Each of these can be re-assigned to something else, or you can scroll down to a second page of blank icons.

To assign a function to a OneTouch button, either touch one of the unassigned icons, or touch the Edit button.

Figure 12: Routing Mode

The RoadMate App can navigate in Car or Pedestrian mode. When set to pedestrian mode, the route and estimated arrival times are adjusted for foot travel.

Finding An Address

Figure 13: Main Menu

The RoadMate App lets you to enter a destination a number of different ways, but probably the most common method is to use a street address. To test Magellan's address entry system, we'll enter a destination address in New York City.

Tap "Address" to enter a street address as a destination.

Figure 14: Enter City or Zip Code

Use the on-screen keyboard to enter the city name, or zip code of the destination address.

You can also tap the icon just to the right of the text entry box to see recently found cities.

Figure 15: Enter Street Name

After the City name (or zip code) has been entered, we'll need to enter the street name.

Use the on-screen keyboard to enter the street name.

Figure 16: QuickSpell

Text entry on the RoadMate App is aided by Magellan's QuickSpell feature. QuickSpell helps avoid misspellings and typos by graying out invalid letters as you type, only allowing letters to be pressed that will spell valid city names.

Figure 17: Enter Street Number

Next we'll need to enter the house/building number of our destination address.

Notice that the RoadMate App displays the valid range of house numbers for the chosen street (in this example, the valid range of house numbers along Central Park West in New York City is 1-499). This can be handy for situations when you're unsure of the exact house number.

Once the house number has been entered, tap the green checkmark to continue on to the Route Calculation page, shown below.

Figure 18: Address Confirmation Screen

Once the address has been fully entered, the RoadMate App displays the address confirmation screen, shown above. This screen lets you begin navigating to the destination by tapping the large, orange, "Go" button, and also provides the following options:

• Save - Saves the address to the address book
• Options - Lets you choose one of four available routing preferences (shown below), or manually exclude specific roads from the planned route

Tap Options to change the Route Method (shortest time, shortest distance, least use of freeways, or most use of freeways), or the Go button to begin navigating to the destination.

Figure 19: Map Screen

After tapping the orange "Go" button, the RoadMate App begins navigating to your destination address.

Finding A Restaurant

Figure 20: Main Menu

In GPS speak, a "Point of Interest", or POI, is a business address saved on the GPS. You can think of the POI database as a yellow pages stored on the GPS, allowing you to find nearby businesses, such as restaurants, gas stations, hotels, and more.

A POI database is a powerful feature that really comes in handy -- especially when traveling in unfamiliar places. Once you've used the Points of Interest directory a few times, you'll appreciate the convenience of being able to find a hotel, restaurant, gas station, parking lot, shopping center, or just about any other type of business with a few taps on the screen.

Magellan's RoadMate App comes with a local POI database, but fails to leverage the iPhone's Internet connectivity. That means your limited to the information stored in the App rather than being able to use Google local search for an essentially unlimited, always up-to-date POI database.

In this example I'm going to look for nearby restaurants. Touch "Points of Interest" to begin searching for a restaurant.

Figure 21: Find by Category

POIs are grouped into categories. Some categories also have sub-categories. For example, Restaurants have sub-categories for the various cuisine types.

Use the scroll bars to view the POI categories, and tap on the category within which you want to search.

In this example I'm looking for nearby restaurants, so I'll tap Restaurant to continue.

Figure 21: Select Subcategory

Restaurants can be further limited to a specific cuisine type, if desired. For example, if we wanted to find a Chinese restaurant, we can choose Chinese as the subcategory on this screen.

Alternatively, you can choose not to limit the results list to a specific cuisine, and view all restaurant types by selecting Show All.

Figure 22: Restaurant Results List

Restaurants are listed in order of closeness to your current location. Any restaurant can be navigated to by tapping the restaurant's name, or called by tapping the telephone icon.

You can search for restaurants near some location other than your current position by tapping the Near... button in the lower right corner of the screen.

Pros

	Supports multi-destination trips
	Turn-by-turn GPS navigation on your iPhone
	Speed limit information displayed for most major roads
	Unique "Exit POI" feature let's you see available gas stations, lodging, and food options at upcoming highway exits. Great for long trips
	Nice text entry system (QuickSpell)
	3D landmarks displayed on the map
	Chime sounds before each turn, alerting the driver that it's time to make a turn
	"Least Use of Freeway" routing option provides a quick way to stay off the highways, when needed
	OneTouch menu lets you quickly access the most commonly used addresses / search queries
	Works with iPhone 4, 3GS, 3G. Also compatible with iPod Touch (2nd generation), provided you also buy Magellan's optional Premium Car Kit

Cons

	No Internet connectivity
	No real-time traffic
	Annoying, overall sluggishness
	Cannot exclude a specific road from the planned route
	Poor routing logic
	Pedestrian mode only adjusts the ETA, not the route
	Map can be difficult to read, especially when navigating complex intersections (green highlighted route can blend into the green background colors)
	3D map mode looks more like 2D mode to me
	Lacks the AAA TourBook data found on Magellan's dedicated GPS devices
	Strange sounding text-to-speech
	$50 on the pricey side for an iPhone App

Conclusion

Magellan's RoadMate App is compatible with Apple's iPhone 4, 3GS, and 3G. The App can also be used with 2nd generation iPod touch devices, when used with Magellan's optional Premium Car Kit for iPhone and iPod touch. The optional car kit adds a windshield mount with a built-in enhanced GPS, speaker, and vehicle power cable. Available in a USA only version for $49.99, or a North America version for $59.99, Magellan's RoadMate App is inexpensive compared to a standalone GPS, but still on the expensive side for an iPhone app. Consumers are increasingly interested in leveraging smartphones for GPS navigation, and the logic is understandable: why lug a second device around when you could just make use of the cell phone you're already carrying. Magellan's RoadMate App looks almost identical to the RoadMate software that runs on the company's dedicated Personal Navigation Devices (PNDs). The map layout, overall feature set, and text entry system are all virtually identical. When navigating to a destination, the RoadMate App faithfully issues a chime whenever it's time to make a turn. Complex highway intersections are assisted by way of Magellan's lane guidance feature that makes it easier to see which lane you should be driving in. Magellan's unique "Exit POI' feature lets you easily see gas stations, restaurants, and hotels at upcoming highway exits -- a great feature for long road trips. Strangely, the detour function on the iPhone app is more limited than on the dedicated GPS devices from Magellan. You can no longer exclude a specific road or highway from the planned route. Disappointingly, the RoadMate App doesn't take advantage of the fact that it's running on an iPhone; there's no ability to search the Internet for businesses (POIs), weather, news, flight times, or movie show times. Also missing is real-time traffic data. I also found fault with the routing logic. The App frequently chose less than optimal routes that would have significantly added drive time to the trip, although I did appreciate the option to choose 4 different routes (shortest time, shortest distance, least highway, most highway). There's also an annoying sluggishness to the App. Every screen tap is following by a slight delay, and it can be challenging to tap just the right area of the screen -- especially when using the App in a car. Magellan's RoadMate App brings the company's familiar RoadMate GPS navigation platform to Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch (with optional car kit) for a lot less money than buying a dedicated GPS. The RoadMate App isn't perfect, but it will get you to your destination using the cell phone you're already carrying around.