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NDrive Contest!

Well I finally was able to get the map downloaded. my remark and review is in

Pros
gps finds you quick... big plus
Offline map feature is awesome and a great feature
lots of features with an easy to use UI.
split lane is awesome
POI is accurate
itinerary is a great feature too
avoid tolls and certain streets along the route

cons
Huge download
time consuming downloading process
no app to sd feature
integration with google search would be awesome.

other than that i cant complain, it has taken me , where i need to go each time. Now the question is , is it enough to make you want to spend when google maps gets better and better with each update. I guess its up to the individual

In comparison to Google Maps and the Navigation, how do you compare this? I have not really had any problem with Google Maps Navigation (although sometimes it would be nice if the maps were cached so that it didn't take forever downloading and sometimes I get the error that it can't find my location).
 
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I've tried on both WiFi and cell, but I doubt that the IMEI number automatically gets passed on to all web traffic, since that is a semi-sensitive number. The application itself probably passes it, but that would mean it would be there regardless of WiFi or cell tower. At this point I'm thinking we either just somehow got skipped in the process, they have some issue on their end, or we keyed in our IMEI number incorrectly when sending it. I don't have my sent message to check against, but I sent Phases a PM to verify if that might have been it.

What phones/OS versions do you guys have? May be something with that too? I have a backflip, version 1.5.
 
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Nope, still no luck. I received a reply from Phases and I was able to confirm that my IMEI number was in fact correct, but still nothing. I asked him to try and get in contact with the people over at NDrive a few days ago, but I haven't heard anything back from him. NDrive's website has a contact form on their website, I am going to try contacting them there and see if I can get anywhere with that.
 
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Nope, still no luck. I received a reply from Phases and I was able to confirm that my IMEI number was in fact correct, but still nothing. I asked him to try and get in contact with the people over at NDrive a few days ago, but I haven't heard anything back from him. NDrive's website has a contact form on their website, I am going to try contacting them there and see if I can get anywhere with that.


That sounds like a good plan, I just did that too. I also sent a confirmation of my imei to Phases a few days ago, but haven't heard back on that yet.
 
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Tried using NDrive on a recent trip.

They seemed get every aspect of the UI completely wrong, along with some of the core tech. The best thing that can be said is that it works while offline--like the dancing bear, it's not how well the bear dances, but that it dances at all.

A quick summary of issues:

1. It tried to route us over an hour out of our way in the Portland area. We couldn't convince it to reroute us on the freeway that went directly from where we were to where we wanted to be. Once we crossed downtown (and after ignoring a series of annoying requests to exit or turn around), it finally figured out where we were and rerouted us. Another time it routed us by a very long path, and I tried selecting "alternate route," and it was reported as a half hour faster. Why would the secondary route be that much faster? I had "fastest" route selected.
2. Its address entry sequence is perverse: First you select a city by clicking on the country flag, selecting a state, THEN selecting the city. If you're in a Wyoming you'll be scrolling through the list of all the states before you can select your city, every time. Then you enter the street name, and THEN you enter the street number. If you forget and enter a street number with the street name, you're stuck--no way to select anything or to ask it to search.
3. On one freeway stretch it would tell us every minute or so to stay on the freeway (i.e., don't get off at EVERY exit we passed).
4. When downloading maps, it got stuck and crashed. I tried again, but didn't have time to do it over wi-fi, and I don't have a data plan. I never managed to get it to download all of the maps before the trial expired.
5. The maps are pretty pricey, and really large, though potentially worth it to save money on data or, in my case, because I choose not to pay for a data plan at all.
6. There's no way to see a compass on the main screen, nor is there a "North is Up" mode for the map--except when you zoom out a certain amount, at which point it sometimes switches to "North is Up" without telling you. The phone has a built-in compass; there's no excuse for this feature to be missing!
7. It does no automatic dead reckoning: If you're going down a freeway with no exits at 65 MPH (which it also knows), and you lose your GPS signal, it will let you blast right past your exit. Even if it could have pretty much known where you were. Heck, it could check the accelerometers and know that you haven't slowed down!
8. It loses GPS a LOT. This is probably a phone issue (Motorola Milestone), but still, it makes #7 pretty annoying.
9. No support for multiple waypoints. Come ON! This is on pretty much every GPS device available at this point.
10. UI is very NON-Android: The back button only sometimes works as expected, and there's no icon in the notifications bar to indicate that it's still running (and to allow you to exit without calling up the app again!).
11. Once I'm done navigating to my destination, if I am not currently looking at the map, it should turn off GPS and (more importantly!) stop beeping every time it loses/regains GPS. Why do I need to know when it's in my pocket?!

There were a few other issues, but those are the basics. It was rather...frustrating using it. If there were an option--any other option--that fixed some of the above issues without adding many of its own, I'd have to recommend it. Until then, I'll probably end up forking over the cash for a map and use it.

Some folks ask for a comparison to Google Maps/Navigation: Google Navigation is a dream to use comparatively, but also isn't perfect. It fails #9 (multiple waypoints), and I don't know whether it uses dead reckoning (#7) since I haven't had it lose GPS--and since I don't have a data plan, I haven't been able to use it much. But Google Navigation does work (somewhat) without the data plan, and I prefer to use it when I can.
 
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Nope, still no luck. I received a reply from Phases and I was able to confirm that my IMEI number was in fact correct, but still nothing. I asked him to try and get in contact with the people over at NDrive a few days ago, but I haven't heard anything back from him. NDrive's website has a contact form on their website, I am going to try contacting them there and see if I can get anywhere with that.


You have any luck yet? Still nothing for me :(

I am going camping again this weekend, to another new spot I haven't tried before. It'd be great to have navigation so I don't get lost like last time! LOL
 
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