From WebOSAppReview
[edit] Sprint Navigator
| Developed By | Sprint |
|---|---|
| Current Version | 2.1 |
[edit] Description
Sprint Navigator is a Turn-by-Turn GPS navigation application provided by Spring and powered by TeleNav. Sprint Navigator is installed by default on all Palm Pre phones.
[edit] Review
Reviewing a smartphone-based turn by turn voice navigation system is a tricky matter, as several factors are inextricably intertwined:
- The quality of the navigation software itself.
- The quality of the GPS, CPU, communications, and video hardware.
- The ability of the underlying operating to handle 1 & 2.
We are going to first take a look at these individual components, we’ll make some basic comparisons with two other GPS systems that are highly related, and we’ll end with an assessment of the “user experience.”
A note before we get on to the meat and potatoes:
The Sprint Navigator is a server-based solution. By that we mean that the maps and points of interest (POI) are not kept locally on the Pre, nor is the route computation done on the Pre. Rather these are done on Telenav’s servers. Rather than reviewing this approach, we will simply observe the advantages and disadvantages of the technology, and we’ll let the reader draw his or her own conclusion based upon their preferences. Quality of the navigation software.
The “Sprint Navigator” is a private label version of the Telenav Navigator, which is available on (by Telenav’s count) over 180 phones. For this review, we took a Palm Pre, an iPhone 3GS, and a BlackBerry Bold on a ride to get a sense of how the Pre version measures up.
Startup on the Pre was, to say the least, spectacular. The time to first acquisition was, in most cases, nearly instantaneous. This is probably in part be due to allowing the Pre to have its GPS hardware “on” all the time, which may have a negative impact on the battery. Couple the quick acquisition time with a zippy CPU and a fast network and you get startup times that leave the iPhone 3G and BlackBerry Bold in the dust.
We found the voice directions clear and well timed. We especially like the feature that directs you which side of the road to bear on after taking an exit or a turn (”Take exit 7AB and bear right”). The graphics, while not spectacular, are highly functional, easy to read, and you can choose between map and 3-D views of the road.
A couple of really great features deserve special mention: Because of its server implementation, you can program trips in advance right from your Web browser, after which they become available on the Pre. You can also get get driving directions sent to your Pre by speaking your destination into the Telenav speaker-independent voice recognition system which the Navigator will dial for you. The recognition worked flawlessly for me, but I should note that I speak pretty clearly and I don’t have a thick ethnic accent. I suppose it is a shortcoming of this review that I did not repeat the experiment after knocking back a few martinis.
The Sprint Navigator was surprisingly fast to detect when we went off course and quickly recomputed an alternate route. This is important because it helps avoid what we call the “Gingerbread Man Syndrome:” If the navigation program takes too long to figure out that you are off track and tell you what you need to do to correct the situation it may be too late to take the corrective action. So now you are off track again, and the maddening process repeats itself.
Noticeably lacking, though, are waypoints and night colors. Waypoints allow you to plan a series of stops for a trip. The workaround, of course, is to navigate each section of your trip separately, which many users will find annoying. Night colors are more muted than day colors, and make the ride safer because there is less contrast between the darkness of the road and the brightness of the screen. While the Pre has an ambient light sensor, it does not dim the screen sufficiently at night to obviate the need for night colors. Telenav is well aware of these shortcomings, and although their policy is not to pre-announce new features, we expect to see them at some point.
We also note that the Sprint Navigator is not currently integrated with the Pre address book. Interestingly, neither is the iPhone Navigator, but the BlackBerry Bold version is. We find this lack annoying, but mitigated by the Pre’s ability to run both the Navigator and the address book simultaneously. We found that it was possible, although not particularly convenient, to use the Pre copy and paste functions to fetch an address from the address book and paste it into the Navigator. GPS hardware.
While we have read some postings that the GPS is unreliable, after using the Pre for a week we never once encountered this problem, traveling through Northern New Jersey, New York City, and Long Island. However, we did once encounter a data services “dead area” in Queens, New York. The consequence was that the maps for the area could not be downloaded, and the Navigator, dependent upon contact with the server, was completely unable to give any directions. Worse yet, the error it gave was (and forgive me if I don’t get this exactly right) “Cannot find route to destination.” Although technically true, it was less then informative. It took some playing around to figure out that the real problem was that communication with the server was lost. While communication with the server isn’t exactly what one normally thinks of as “GPS hardware” we feel the dependency upon a data connection is just as important as acquiring the GPS satellites, and so requires mentioning in this context.
As a corollary to the last point, we note that Sprint does not allow for simultaneous voice and data. That means that if you receive a phone call, the Navigator will lose its connection to its server for the duration of the call. That might be acceptable during a long stretch on a single road, but can wreak havoc if you need to be reminded to take an exit in the middle of, say, an amorous exchange. We should emphasize, though, that this is a limitation of the Sprint network, and one we would love to see remedied.
The screen quality makes reading the display easy, even if you only have time to take a quick glance.
Overall we give high marks to the GPS hardware, but caution that YMMV depending upon where you intend to use the Navigator. Especially as compared to the iPhone 3GS, the Pre hardware was far faster to acquire a fix, and was significantly more accurate (the iPhone in some cases was completely unable to get a fix in Morristown, New Jersey, and was sometimes two blocks off on the East side of Midtown Manhattan). Ability of WebOS to support the GPS hardware and software.
We freely admit our prejudice for an operating system that is willing to run multiple programs concurrently. WebOS did a spectacular job running the Pandora music service during navigation. The Navigator fades the music out, gives your your voice notification, then fades the music back in. The effect is simply gorgeous.
Taking the Pre to a rest stop, we were able to read our email, surf the Web, while listening to music, and without closing the Navigator. Back to the car, we simply flipped back to the Navigator, and off we went. No need to start the navigation program up again and tell it our destination. We did not attempt to push the number of programs running concurrently to see the effect on navigation, but with the programs mentioned we saw no deterioration in the performance of the Navigator.
We noted that the Palm Pre has an appetite for batteries. For trips lasting more than an hour we found that a car charger was highly advisable. Comparing the Sprint Navigator to its BlackBerry and iPhone implementations.
As we mentioned earlier, the Sprint Navigator is a port of the Telenav Navigator, which also runs on the BlackBerry and iPhone platforms. We decided to take the Pre, a BlackBerry Bold, and an iPhone 3GS on a road trip together to compare how they do. We started off in Lido Beach, Long Island, which has a clear view of the sky, and programmed them all for the same destination, with the same options (”fastest route”).
We would truly have loved to be able to be able to write a lengthy report, giving the pros and cons of each device. This was not to be. After less than 5 minutes, the results became painfully clear: the iPhone version was a disaster. The AT&T Navigator on the iPhone was nearly unusable. It failed to update the car’s location, telling us the car was motionless when in fact we were moving and two blocks away from where it had us on the map. We assumed this was a freak occurrence and drove around for a quarter of an hour to see if it needed time to gain its bearings, but to no avail.
The BlackBerry Bold fared better, but we were neither impressed with its responsiveness nor the accuracy of its fix, but determined that it was definitely usable.
The Sprint Navigator on the Pre, on the other hand, was flawless. It acquired its fix within a few seconds and held on to it for the duration of the test. It computed our route very quickly. We were quite impressed. Conclusion.
We give a thumbs up to the Sprint Navigator. Using the fast Palm Pre GPS and CPU hardware, we found the Navigator to deliver a quality experience, with a few reservations. Considering this is the initial release of the software, we are very favorably impressed.