TomTom finally released their turn-by-turn navigation app for the iPhone this week. The third full-featured GPS app for the platform, it's also the most expensive, coming in at $100. Is it worth the price?
Here's the gist of it, if you'd rather not read the whole thing: it's good, but not perfect. If you remember our review of Navigon MobileNavigator for the iPhone, it was exactly the same way. As such, there's no clear cut winner here. Best read the review and decide if the app's strengths are exactly what you're looking for.
First up, it's the fastest GPS app I've seen on the iPhone, loading in just around five seconds (about 10 seconds less than other options) and finding a signal almost immediately. The maps look fine (though it is, arguably, the least visually-appealing of the three iPhone GPS apps) and there's barely any learning curve.
The app's interface is great - very easy to use with accurate controls. Input mechanism is particularly convenient, hinting at a properly-designed user experience. I haven't seen TomTom's previous efforts on other devices, but they might have perfected the UI process because their app is definitely enjoyable to work with.
Despite those positives, however, this app suffers from some serious flaws. The maps and POI database, for one, aren't the most up-to-date. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if these were at least a year old - it couldn't find a couple of newer addresses I plugged in, apart from showing points-of-interest that, as far as I know, no longer exist.
Pulling the addresses from your iPhone's contacts database is a major pain, as the app can only recognize entries with zipcode. If you haven't been in the habit of adding zipcodes to your contact lists, best do so or you'll have to enter the addresses manually every single time.
Like the two available iPhone GPS apps (Navigon and iGo My Way), it skimps on many extras, including text-to-speech, traffic updates and similar features. It's not a deal-breaker, but not having them makes it less enticing of a choice - especially for $100. Unless you need a GPS app for the iPhone right now, I'm more inclined to suggest that you wait for someone else to fill the gap, because what's available right now just isn't all that great.
Great to see TomTom releasing a GPS app for the iphone. But for a high price of $100 I would look for something else.
$100 is just too expensive. I don’t think anyone would be spending that much no matter how good the app is.
[...] play the service from the background. As such, listening to MLB Play-By-Play while using the TomTom navigator in your car won’t be possible. If that’s not an issue, you can enjoy over-the-air satellite radio [...]