Review Part 3: Navigation Apps on Android

Since the publication of this review, I have written another post where I

  • review our experience with off-line navigation after 35,000 kilometres,
  • add my 2 Cents worth about other navigation apps not covered in this review.


This series of articles is still relevant if you want to learn all about the features of the 2 apps reviewed: MapFactor Navigator & Skobbler/Scout. Be warned: it’s long ;)

These could be funny:

The Absolute Navigation Fails

Unfortunately, when caught in one of the following situations, it is always way more stressful than funny. Sometimes I can laugh about them afterwards, but then I always realise that it won’t be the last time such things could happen to me.

To divide this last section into app specifics doesn’t feel appropriate because a number of false routing outcomes can be traced to OSM data not being complete or just plain incorrect. Quite frequently maps seem to lack basic information, like no left turn permitted at particular intersections, or one-way streets that are not marked. A few times tiny gaps of a few pixels in the map data have caused total confusion.

As with Google maps, OSM base maps are created from scans of satellite images. For years now these images are often so sharp that you can decipher a vehicle’s number plate, so to extract roads and tracks from them should be a straight forward process – if there weren’t clouds and low shadows from trees and structures obscuring some sections. Rendering image data into digital map data adds a second level of inaccuracy. Traffic density (how often somebody records a particular track) and active user engagement, like manual map corrections, provide the final verification for accurate and consistent map files. In South America there still seems to be a fair bit of work required!

For me, as I have driven most kilometres on my own, it poses the question: do I trust the OSM maps and follow my GPS, or do I not trust my navigation device and jot down key turning points and stick this note on my dashboard? The latter is flawed by patchy or missing sign posting in many places. Overall the GPS seems to do a good job most of the time and gets me where I want to go.

Along the way I have to prepare for some ridiculous mistakes and the occasional hairy situation the navigation app gets me into. I had the following happen to me:

GPS review: cloverleaf error on Skobbler/Navigator

GPS review: cloverleaf error on Skobbler/Navigator

Wrong Routing Through Cloverleaf Intersections

This is one of my most serious repeat complaints. First time I fell for a faulty routing in a cloverleaf, a turning lane to the right was ignored and the app drew instead a sharp 90 degree right turn onto the cloverleaf – this gave me the completely wrong distance to my turn. Fortunately, despite dense fog, I was able to read relevant road signs in time.

More often the sharper 270 degree right on a cloverleaf is not calculated, which gives you a false left turn command (see image). As mentioned before, the auto-zoom of maps often doesn’t show enough of the road ahead, which doesn’t leave much time to pick up such mistakes well in advance. The first time this happened I was in a traffic jam in Mendoza, Argentina and the road in question was like a highway ending (as I knew from my paper maps) onto regular city streets, so a left turn appeared to be plausible. With vehicles bumper to bumper all around me, I followed the app’s instructions and moved early into the left lane; by the time the intersection came into view on my screen, and in front of me, there was no time to correct the mistake and move across three lanes to the right (traffic on the off-ramp was moving relatively fast, all other lanes stop-and-go).
When I met German friends, using Skobbler on a large iPad, I could see that this particular 270-degree-right-turn has a tiny gap of a about 4-6 pixels in it – enough to give the navigation app a false interruption in the road data. On my tablet, in best zoom level, this flaw doesn’t even show up.

Two Off-Ramps Running Parallel

At night on a highway intersection in Santiago de Chile I was able watch the navigation pointer jump several times from one off ramp onto the other. One ramp was a bit lower, leading to the right (North), one higher, ending in a sharp left turn overpass onto the opposite lane (South). As it turned out of course I was on the wrong ramp. You see why I don’t like to drive highways?

Strange Routing (Shortest Way vs. Shortest Way)

On one hand it can happen that the navigation app wants to take you through a really narrow residential street to save one or two blocks. If you’re really lucky this residential street will have speed bumps and stop signs at every cross road – so you don’t save any time or fuel. On the other hand the navigation sometimes simply refuses to take the shortest route, even if its there, right in front of you, on the app’s map, and on your paper map.

Both, Skobbler and Navigator, refused to go straight on.

An early photo: both, Skobbler and Navigator, refused to go straight on. Instead both insisted on a long detour along Ruta 5. I drove on, the road was a little narrow but perfectly sealed and drivable – quite scenic…

The latter happened on the way from Rancagua to Santiago: I had studied my paper map and discovered a route running about 20-30 kilometres inland parallel to Ruta 5, which is a toll highway. I figured it wouldn’t be any longer, even possibly shorter, and would take me through some interesting country side (which proved to be correct: lovely rural farming villages), and save me some 4-6,000 Pesos in tolls (and the unpleasant heavy vehicle races into Santiago). I had no time pressure, but both apps absolutely refused to take this route! No way I could trick them. Initially I navigated from one small town along the way to the next, until neither app wanted to continue. Finally they both wanted me to backtrack a long way, get onto the highway, later exit the highway and come back down to some place along my route… Weird.
I ignored all of this, drove straight on over a small pass. The road was narrow, a bit windy, not too narrow, relatively freshly resealed, hardly any traffic, and offered some beautiful rural vistas. I won, GPS lost.

The worse false routing: Alto Las Condes is a Shopping Mall with Parking Station Entrance off the Highway - too low for our camper!

The worse false routing: Alto Las Condes is a Shopping Mall with Parking Station Entrance off the Highway – too low for our camper! (Capture from Internet)

Taking Private Roads

This has been, to this day, my most stressful experience with my off-line navigation. I was on my way to Los Dominicos in Las Condes, Santiago, coming from the North East. Most times the app(s) advise me to get off at Exit 8, Avenida Americo Vespucio Norte. But I never expect any consistency with navigation software (my last Garmin and TomTom weren’t any better; they also sometimes took me one way to get to a place, a completely different way to return). So this time I was taken straight past the exit and guided off the highway onto a narrow 180 degree concrete ramp bordered by tall concrete walls left and right – to end up at the ticket boom gate of the Alto Las Condes shopping mall, fanning straight into a parking garage with a height restriction of 2.2 metres.

Berta (our overland camper) is roughly 3.40m tall, so no way I would fit. Reversing was out of question because I had a number of very impatient car drivers behind me. A gardener told me to proceed and take a narrow delivery lane to the right. So I pulled my ticket (have you ever tried that from the height of a truck, where the dispenser sits half a metre below your door handle to be the correct height for car windows?) and drove to the right. The lane sloped somewhat and then was barred by a locked chain = dead end.

I stood there, blew my horn, yelled, tried to get the attention, one way or the other, of a security guard or some other person who could get a key. I didn’t spot anybody in a radius of 500 metres. After what appeared to be an excruciatingly long time, I climbed down to inspect the chain; it had two slightly opened chain links, so after some more fruitless yelling I decided to force them apart. Just when I was swinging the gate open a security guard appeared on a bicycle, and started to yell at me for damaging the chain (untrue, but how to prove when caught in the act). He called reinforcement, suddenly I was facing three outraged security guards blabbering along in rapid Chilean Spanish, all at once. It got rather loud and heated. None was the least interested in my mishap, only that I was unauthorised to be there and had opened a locked gate.

Finally a supervisor came to the scene, with a neater uniform and calmer behaviour. Then, after almost 10 minutes of heated yelling, I was able to explain in detail how I got to be there and show him on my tablet screen. He explained that I could get out the exit gate furthest to the left, all others were too low, but not before I had gone inside the shopping centre and paid my parking ticket. After all: 20 minutes were free, but that time had long past due to the inefficiency of the first security guards. So I jogged a long way into the centre, tried to work out the payment machine, and finally came back with my paid exit ticket. The supervisor was at least nice enough to feed it into the machine for me because from the height of my driver’s cab it was again impossible…

Final Summary

I don’t think I can go back to only using paper maps, but I’m very much looking forward to having a co-pilot who can verify routes and particular turns. Most of the time it seems to be okay to follow your navigation app, although occasionally you have to improvise like driving past a narrow road the app wants you to take in the hope that there will follow a wider road going the same direction.

Overall I used to like Skobbler much more – until the recent struggle with address search made it unusable in cities. Now I’m switching again between Skobbler/Scout and MapFactor Navigator, but often come back to Skobbler when I don’t like the single route option Navigator insists on. I have also downloaded a third app, OsmAnd, but haven’t tried it much. First impression: it uses a vector rendering technique to render the maps which, in theory, should be good because it reduces the size of maps and gives a more detailed map presentation. But, if you scroll quickly through a map the lag of re-drawing the vector information is painfully slow. I’ll post another blog about OsmAnd once I have tested it on the road.

ps: if you read the most recent reviews of Skobbler/Scout on the Google Play Store you’ll find many more people as disappointed by recent updates as I am. Some quotes:

I just edited my 4 stars rating to 1 until they fix the last HORRIBLE update!! Very bad and crappy interface! Everything was perfect (exept for frequent address bugs, taking me to wrong addresses) but after last update the Recent feature as well as food, gas etc categories were removed!!!! That was the difference between a good GPS app vs a regular. Don’t mix the social media with a GPS app! Very bad decision, no intelligent thinking was involved in this update, very very crappy :(. Delete this entire update and resend the other one!

New version sucks! I’m a nearly every day user, what happened to my “Recents” button? and my send eta option? Who the hell needs to chat I need to be able to keep from being cheated out of time by my employer. Send my eta did just that! “Recents” places that I tend to visit on occasion was great, where did it go? I used this app almost every day for three years now I’m in-installing it!

I’ll take the old version please! The old scout version provided the user with several search options based on what you were looking for in the community. Banks, restaurants, shopping, gas, coffee, etc. This version of Scout took all those services away and I don’t understand why. Bring back the old Scout. Those who rated this new version of Scout a 5 truly has no idea of the great services Scout used to provide.

Samsung Galaxy S5 After new update this is now the worst gps ever heard of you type in an address and it takes you to a different street than what you typed in and it used to get up to the front door of every house i delivered to somethings you just shouldnt change because look what happens til its fixed im using waze.

Bring back the old ap…where are my recents etc…i dont want to share my driving or chat about my trip…what am i 2…i use for business and navigating. Not playing..this was apparently made by teens for teens who don’t need encouragement to chat and meet up when they do enough of that already.

It sucks, it does not work Ever since they upgraded, it barely works, its slow, it doesnt update while you drive. Give me back the old one.

Previous Posts: Part 1 and Part 2 of this Series

Download Links:
Skobbler/Scout for Android and Apple iTunes
MapFactor Navigator for Android
OsmAnd for Android

Pages: 1 2

Juergen

webmaster, main photographer & driver, second cook and only husband at dare2go.com. Freelance web designer with 20+ years of experience at webbeetle.com.au

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1 Response

  1. Ignoring apps can be fun! We like it when Siri gets frustrated with us on our iPhone! :)

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