When AOL's MapQuest division announced it had added voice navigation to its free iPhone app, people took notice. Android and Symbian owners already have free navigation with Google Maps Navigation and Nokia Ovi Maps (Free, 
). Could MapQuest now do the same thing on the iPhone?
Alas, there's a huge gaping hole between "adding voice navigation" and providing a proper in-car GPS experience. MapQuest 4 Mobile is so stripped down it's downright dangerous to use when behind the wheel. It's fine if you're a passenger, but this is no competitor to either paid iPhone GPS apps or to the free apps available on Android and Nokia phones.
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For this review, I tested MapQuest 4 Mobile version 1.5.1 on an iPhone 3GS ($199-$299, 
).
Specifications
- Type
- Personal
- Free
- Yes
Features, Interface Layout, and POI Search
MapQuest is more comparable to the iPhone's built-in Google Maps program than to any third-party GPS application. The main screen is just a map. Below the map is an array of six icons for displaying hotels, gas stations, post offices, and some other commonly searched-for locations, although the choices seemed rather arbitrary. Along the bottom of the screen are four icons for the map view, getting directions, browsing favorite places, or configuring settings. You can start or stop navigation at any time; the usual "my location" icon zeroes the app in on your current position. As before, the app offers support for pedestrian-based navigation, a selection of main icon choices that represent you on the screen, and the ability to save favorite locations.
Voice guidance vaults MapQuest above Google Maps. Unfortunately, the program gives you just enough information to fool you into using it, but not enough to allow you to drive with confidence. MapQuest 4 Mobile doesn't announce the distance to the next turn or what street to turn on; it just says "prepare to turn left." It also offers off-route assistance—with a huge caveat, which I'll get to in a moment—plus gesture-based zoom.
Starting a trip means keying in an address or search term, and then choosing from the results that come up. There's no type-ahead feature, so you have to enter the entire search term. In a series of POI searches, I was able to find most addresses without a problem. Running searches felt clunkier than with Google Maps. For example, searching for "Indian" brought up a ton of restaurants, many of which had nothing to do with Indian food. Numerous restaurant icons also had a plus sign next to them, indicating that multiple locations were found and that I needed to tap to zoom in. But tapping four or five times still wasn't close enough to tell the difference between the locations. Despite the poor search algorithms, inputting a street address generally worked well.
Map View and Navigation Performance
During navigation, the app's route choices seemed to correspond to what I was used to. But given how sparse the voice prompts are, the lack of on-screen information was a disaster. All I saw is the moving 2D map, and some instructions for the next turn in a tiny font. That's a recipe for distracted driving. There's no current speed or trip ETA, no lane assistance (either 2D or 3D), night mode, or speed limit monitoring. The map doesn't even rotate to match your current heading. Worse, this is the only navigation app I've ever tested that lacks a big icon showing the direction of the next turn.
For walking, you can bring up a portrait mode list of step-by-step directions. In landscape mode, it shows one big step per screen, and you can swipe between them. But landscape mode doesn't work for the actual map view. And there's nothing to recommend MapQuest over Google Maps for pedestrians.
Some local routes worked correctly, while others were a nightmare. For example, when exiting I-495 in Massachusetts, on a complex interchange that involved multiple steps, I knew I needed to end up on Route 3 North. But the app didn't show any of the intermediate steps, and it didn't make any announcements either (see screenshot). I had to first read the fine print on the screen to figure out that Route 3 was next. Then, somehow, I was expected to know to abandon the app, and look for the actual road signs heading toward Route 3, before I missed the first one. There's no way I would have made the right decision if I wasn't already familiar with the roads in question.
Route Recalculations and Conclusions
It gets worse. Once you go off route, the app doesn't automatically recalculate a new one. Instead, it pops up a "re-route?" prompt, which you have to tap on manually. This was a constant source of irritation; I'd program a route, and then begin exiting a mall parking lot, only to immediately be told "off-route," with the screen now obscured by the off-route dialog. If I happened to wander back onto the original programmed route, it would resume navigation. But otherwise I had to force a manual reroute while moving. Once done, it wouldn't announce the next step, so I'd have to look at the screen again, but not until after it was done recalculating. I spent way too much time looking at the display, trying to figure out what was coming up and what the app expected me to do, than is prudent when behind the wheel of a moving vehicle.
MapQuest told us they recommend that if you go off-route, to stop and pull over the car to recalculate. I don't see that happening; rather, I see people driving unsafely as they tap at little buttons on the screen.
Google and Nokia have proven that you can do full-featured navigation for free on a smartphone. MapQuest's navigation, which they call "basic routing," could be useful in the hands of a passenger. But drivers should resist the temptation until MapQuest adds more features, which the company said are coming.
MapQuest also offers a more expensive app, MapQuest Navigation, which adds 3D maps and real-time traffic; that app costs $29.99 per year, though, and looks like a poor deal next to numerous other options.
Budget-minded iPhone owners should go with the U.S.-only version of TomTom 1.3 ($49.99, ) for the iPhone, our current Editors' Choice. Even the discounted (and now updated) ALK CoPilot Live ($29.99, 
) worked fine for basic in-car navigation in my tests. I don't like giving out a 1.5 rating, especially to a free app with such a good pedigree. But MapQuest Mobile just isn't safe to drive with.
