If you’re lost, spending a dollar to get back on track is a small price to pay. With that in mind, Garmin -- a company on the vanguard in satellite navigation -- has introduced the idea of on-demand navigation in its new StreetPilot onDemand iPhone app, which is available in the Apple App Store. The application provides iPhone users navigation information to guide their driving (or walking) when they need it. The initial 99-cent download includes 30 days of premium features, such as spoken turn-by-turn guidance with street names, representation of 3-D buildings and landmarks, traffic rerouting, PhotoReal Junction View and Google Local Search. It is the first iPhone navigation app to include multimodal pedestrian routing, with bus and train transit schedules in many major cities. So if your car and feet fail you, the app will help you take the bus.
“Our new StreetPilot onDemand app is the perfect solution for anyone who occasionally needs navigation but is still looking for a premium experience and precise directions,” says Dan Bartel, Garmin’s vice president of worldwide sales. “There is nothing comparable in the App Store today. By including multimodal pedestrian routing, our new app is especially helpful for users in urban areas. The app seamlessly provides directions in the car and integrates public transportation when getting directions by foot.”
If you’d rather drive -- we would -- the app also is a comprehensive driving assistant that integrates many of the signature features for which Garmin is known. This includes spoken turn-by-turn directions, PhotoReal Junction Views that show a realistic depiction of the junction, as well as lane guidance and real-time traffic information that automatically routes drivers around gridlock. The application suggests points of interest based on the user’s search history to provide faster and more relevant search results, and it warns drivers when they are exceeding the speed limit. It even provides an overview of the weather conditions at the destination, complete with a five-day forecast.
The Garmin StreetPilot onDemand app offers an easy-to-use interface that is customized for the iPhone. It stores the maps and points of interest in the cloud, so they are always up-to-date, and the comprehensive map options allow users to enable or disable features that are displayed on the map, such as traffic information, 3-D buildings, landmarks or points of interest. Pretty cool stuff for a dollar. Users can extend this initial period by subscribing on a monthly ($2.99) or annual ($29.99) basis. Even without a subscription, users can still view maps, look up points of interest and create routes, but a subscription is required for turn-by-turn voice guidance with automatic off-route recalculation, real-time traffic information and multimodal pedestrian routing.
