Review: Road Test Navigation Apps on Android

Address Search in GPS Apps

Once you start using these apps, several clear distinctions in the programming, map design, and usability of both are revealed – each has some features I prefer over the other. Taking photos for this article, I stumbled across a number of search issues where Skobbler, for some reason, has got worse, much worse, since the last update – so read on.

Skobbler/Scout

At first glance the Skobbler search screen looks much cleaner – it has a crisp layout with a large readable font size (I don’t even need my reading glasses). But when you type in the name of a small town, the first shortcoming becomes apparent. If there is more than one place in the current country with that name, Skobbler gives you a list to select from. Navigator does too, but with a clear difference: Navigator lists the towns along with the name of the province, so you have some indication which one to choose. With Skobbler you are relying on pure luck; they are not even listed in order of proximity to your current location. (I sometimes think I should go and buy a lottery ticket if I hit the right one first try!) Usually the next step is to ask Skobbler to show the town on the map, zoom way out and try to figure out where it could be. Another thing which really annoys me with Skobbler is that very often, half-way through typing a new address search, it closes down and I have to re-open it.

When I drive secondary roads, I often pick the town centre as the destination, because I normally don’t need a particular street. But in Santiago I usually have a particular address in mind, to either visit people we know or find a specific commercial outlet. When I first switched to Skobbler in Santiago, it was much more precise in its street search than Navigator (read below about Navigator’s search). Now, since its last update in late September or early October, it has somehow “lost” a large number of street names.

Street search using Skobbler in Santiago de Chile had already gone from good to not so good with an update in late July/early August. Now, since the last update, the address search is close to useless!

For example: our favourite Sushi place, Sakura , has an outlet in Avenida Luis Pasteur 5515, in the suburb of Vitacura (north-east of Santiago Centro). When I wanted to meet Yasha there in September, Skobbler didn’t find the street unless I searched under Vitacura instead of Santiago. But, Navigator found it straight away under Santiago. Now Skobbler doesn’t find it at all, although Avenida Luis Pasteur is a relatively long, main road (see photo)! It doesn’t find it in Santiago and it also doesn’t find Vitacura as a town/place name anymore – NOTHING, NADA, ZILCH! What good is that? The same is happening with many, many other street names or suburbs in greater Santiago. [I only discovered this whilst taking the photos for this review, and then tested it extensively. Please review my EDIT to this at the bottom of this article!]

If the address is in the centre of the city or a main artery road, Skobbler will find the street, and then wants a house number. The data base of house numbers in OSM maps is rather slim, so nowhere near all numbers are included. Skobbler relies on rough guess work as to where a number might be, which can be out by a block or more. With some better programming this shouldn’t really happen, as in Chile the leading digit (or two in the ‘thousands’) refers to the street block, always counting from the end of the street which is closest to the centre of the city. Number 630, for example, will be in the sixth block from that end, 2245 in the twenty-second block.

MapFactor Navigator

Navigator’s address search might not look as pretty as Skobbler’s, but it somehow functions much better (even before Skobbler’s last update – see above). The order remains the same: you start with country, followed by city/town and street name. Then you will notice the first difference – it is also possible to search by cross-roads, which gives a good starting point if the house number search doesn’t yield a result. The house number search is set up differently too; you start typing and Navigator auto-suggests all valid numbers, which will usually place you fairly close to your desired address. Sometimes in cities the size of Santiago it can get complicated, as street names can be repeated, in which case you need to know the suburb. This is also not always helpful, as I know from Berlin that long streets can pass through a number of suburbs and, if you don’t have the suburb name, but only a house number, it can get tricky. The option to search by postcode is available in both apps – if you happen to know it.

This concludes part 1. Part 2 explains other search options, like POIs and GPS coordinates , and finally Part 3 the routing results and my sometimes scary, occasionally hilarious, but also positive, experiences using these GPS Navigation Apps. My conclusion will be based on all factors – so stay tuned!

EDIT: In the meantime I have given Skobbler a second chance. First I used the program’s menu function, Upgrades > Restore purchases, where it confirmed everything was up-to-date. I still deleted the complete, recently updated, Chile map, re-installed it afresh, and surprise: the address search in Skobbler works again just as it is supposed to! Skobbler, now you have me really fuming (what I really want to write is “pissed off”)! Turns out that now full address search is only available with a data connection! That’s not my understanding of an offline navigation app; address search is the first (and most important) step for a successful navigation! This used to work perfectly well back in May/June/July 2014, why not now?
I consider this nothing short of deceiving advertising. I don’t have a data SIM in my tablet, I never had the intention to, I cross borders way too often for it to be useful to me, many regions I travel don’t have any functioning mobile coverage –

these are some of the reasons I chose an app for offline navigation in the first place! Skobbler might have some nice features, but without a proper offline search the app is about as useful as an inflatable dartboard! If this a new deal Skobbler/Scout made with data-mining companies (like Foursquare, who pop up in ‘search’ with data connection) then the image on the right is for you, Skobbler GmbH! It’s not like I don’t have any storage capacity for the extra data; right now I have three navigation apps installed and still 24GB of 32GB left, plus an empty microSD-slot.

Skobbler GmbH was bought in early 2014 by Telenav and now seems to run under the new name Scout – that’s why I sometimes use both names.
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