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It can use the BlackBerry Bridge connection. I just downloaded the update and tried it on the way to drive the kids to school and it worked ok.
I am home now seeing if I can save a bunch of tiles to cover most of the city and surrounding areas, using the wifi at home.
I just bought it - I'm excited to have some kind of offline navigation on the playbook at last!
Some questions...
Some of the android apps that use openstreetmap allow you to download the OSM data by region and allow you to save them on the device for truly offline navigation. Will magellan ever allow us to do this? Will be useful if you travel abroad. I'd really like to pick which regions/countries to cache to the device - this may not be possible with the other mapping provider but should be fine with OSM.
Can you navigate by post (zip) codes? Post codes are very accurate here in the UK (usually accurate to just a few yards) and most satnav applications let you input a postcode instead of a full address, but I haven't got it to work with magellan - am I missing something?
Are there any plans to add text labels to the icons? It's really frustrating to me because I'm unfamiliar to the application and working out what the icons do is a process of trial and error.
Is there any way to stop the app from attempting to recalculate the route when using indoors? I thought that temporarily suspending the navigation wold work, but it doesn't. All I want to do is view the route on the map (so I can look at it and familiarise myself with it) without it recalculating and then redrawing the whole route and moving the view back to my starting point - this is possibly the most frustrating thing.
Also, the options under the "yelp" icon to display hotels, museums etc. Is this supposed to work outside the US? I click these and nothing gets displayed on the map or in the little onscreen popup box at all. When in the "Navigate to" screen it does manage to find hotels/museums etc.
Otherwise, seems like a cool application. Can't wait to get on the road and use it!
So the map tiles don't get cached, and you're depending solely on the voices if you don't have internet access while you're driving? That would be a deal-breaker for me.
On caching:
Two ways to do this. You can set up a route, and then use the menus to cache along that route.
You can scroll around and whatever you see is cached.
Be sure to "save pending" map tiles to have them all available when off-line.
If you want to use it off-lime, be sure to not only cache the area, but also save any routes you will need. You can used a saved route when off-line, but you cannot make a new route nor get re-routed when off-line.
Within those limitations, off-line use works well. I decided the zoom level I like and then scrolled everywhere I was likely to drive. Worked well.
I am done with off-line use now, though; I only did that for testing. I leave bridge connected which allows for on-the-fly routing and re-routing.
Put it through a test drive (literally) this morning. Wow. I can kiss my Garmin goodbye. Now my PB is 20 times more useful. I still need to delve into the other features. So many!
With this, presentation mode, remote desktop, and BB bridge, I don't see what else I need while I'm on the go. And all these for much less than the price of a 16GB iPad?! You have to be a die-hard iFan to not admit that this is great.
I checked for the update and don't see it yet... will check tonight when I get home.
That's a very positive review, but I'm guessing you used it while bridged?
gonna buy this later. i tried osmand as a free gps app and it was absolutely terrible.
I didn't use bridge. I just cached the area I wanted to drive around before I headed out.
And it was that good hey? Glad to hear it.
yep. Now I need a buyer for my Garmin. I paid $200 for the Garmin GPS, the same price I paid for my PlayBook!
For those connected through BES, does the app activity keep the Playbook unlocked? Or do I have touch the screen every couple minutes to make sure I don't have to enter a password while I'm driving ever 5-10 mins?
wow !!
i loved the app before the 3.0 upgrade, and now, im blown away. job well done on this application. extremely smooth interface, and it does just as advertised. very nice !!
I just downloaded the trial version and will use if over the next week. If it does everything it says it will then it's well worth the $5.99.
On a positive note it found my location even while sitting in my office. Something Bing never did.
As I read the various replies... So, while you can say cache maps along a route from say, Vancouver, BC to Los Angeles, Calif, you cannot get a new route if you deviate from your original route unless you have ONLINE access? So, I could cache all of WA, OR and Calif but unless I'm online, I can't change my mind and look for a new route, east of I-5.
That's where standalone gps units still have the advantage. Of course, the data in the maps might be dated and it probably would not know about current detours and closures. But you don't need internet (online) access to change your plans. Okay, what happens if you make a wrong turn? Will it be totally lost or can it at least get you back on route - "U-TURN" etc?
I cannot get the search function to work right. It's awful. I got a hit on the first location, but when I try to search for another, it reverts back to the first one. Let's say you looked for New York and it takes you there, then try Dallas it reverts back to New York and ignores Dallas entirely. What am I doing wrong?
What are you typing in for the search? Search (right now) is looking for an address. Once the address is entered, it will use parts of it for later searches so you dont have to type the whole address in. For example, If you type in "New York,NY,US", it will take you to NYC. The next time you will probably see the default prompt to be "..,New York, NY,US", letting you know that you just need to enter a new street address. If you you want to go go Dallas, then you would enter "Dallas,TX,US" and now that would be the default.
Hope that helps.
You can also change the default address from under preferences.
Lots of good questions:
1) Saved routes. If you save a route while on-line, you can then "Open" the route when off line.
2) While off line, you have access to saved tile data, saved routes and voices. Other services like weather, Yelp, etc, still
require an Internet connection.
3) To auto cache along the route, once you define your route and it is selected, select the "Map Cache" button in the route
guidance page and you can choose the minimul and maximum map level to access. It will auto pan and zoom to access those tiles
so you do not have to manually. Depending on the length of your route and the number of levels being asked for, this may take
some time.
4) We will be adding the ability to pre-cache regions in the next release (not certain of time frame yet). Right now, caching
is automatic (assuming you have a minimum allowed space defined under preferences) as you pan and zoom. You can also pre-cache
along a route.
5) Waypoints for routing can be done by address. You're right about not having a postal address value. We will add it to our
feature request list. We assumed most people do not know the postal codes of an address they are trying to go to.
6) POIs can show their label. It is on by default but can be turned off under the POI preference page (under the layer popup).
7) If you just want to see the directions and now use guidance (that uses GPS to navigate), then under the "Options" button,
you can change "Method" to "Directions" instead of "GPS Guidance".
8) We do not control the coverage of Yelp. Their API does not take into account a specific country just a geographic region.
We will see if the feedback to the user can be more informative.
9) The app stays displayed, it will not lock/hibernate.
10) The guidance system will track if you are going the wrong direction or are "off route". If there is no Internet
connection, it will just tell you. If you do have a connection, you have the option to re-route. We are looking at ways to
bring routing on the device (vs cloud service), but that will be a substantial effort in a lot of different ways.
Now the zooming doesn't work anymore either. So in order for me to search for new places, I have to unistall and reinstall the app to delete old locations, because deleting them in the settings still keep them in memory. Now the app does something really weird: I previously searched for DFW Airport, which btw. just took me to Fort Worth, and now if I select that found Fort Worth entry again, the map from that area briefly flashes and then quickly goes back to the current GPS location.:confused::(:confused:
So another uninstall/reinstall....I want the old version back, is that possible?
This app behaves like a bad Android app now. Never had an issue with the previous build.
I just type Dallas or DFW Airport like I did on the old version. It never even comes up with a list of suggestions.
The search is for an address. "DFW Airport" is not an address, but a place. Also, if a previous address was entered, then all you have to enter is the street address. If the street is not in the previous area (city,state,country), then you have to enter the new parts (street + city if in the same state and country).
We hope to include places in the next release, but it is a little more complicated due to the different data sources being used (MapQues and OSM).
@ralfyguy: In terms of the flashing issue, we have only see this occur a couple of times and have yet to be able to reproduce it. If you can reproduce the steps that you did to cause this, please email that to us so we can track it down. Just goto blog.o2interactive.com to contact us.
In terms of the "DFW Airport" place search, the previous map provider was Google Maps. Now you are using either Map Quest or Open Street Maps. Both have their pros and cons. It is high on our list to have searches by places. You can search by places under the guidance/add/place to get the physical location of something like this.
To hedge off the question of why this is not in place is basically there are lots of things like this we wanted to include in v3, but the timeline kept on getting pushed out. We had to step development at some point and this is one thing that did not make the cut.
It will be great if relying on cloud service for routing can be avoided.
jtegen, thanks for answering some of my questions!
Maybe this is a UK-specific thing, but quite a lot of websites for attractions, businesses etc. just give postcode details for satnav navigation users because they're so accurate here.
I'm looking forward to seeing this app get more and more features and hopefully replace my tomtom for good!