Since version 1, iNav’s iGuidance has been the most accurate and easy to understand voice-guiding GPS navigation program on any device. The 5th version is now available. You may have had some problems with version 4 and 3. There were a number of bugs that made the software unusable for me. I’m happy to say the new 2009 version works great on the ATT Fuze I’ve tested it with. The text-to-speech voice prompts work great, and finally we’ve got a navigation program where you don’t need to look at the map on the screen to clarify where it wants you to turn.
Furthermore, and this is something very few other systems can do, iGuidance has always told you exactly where your destination is. In other words, it will say “In 500 feet, destination on the left.” If you know how far 500 feet is, then you know exactly where you’re going and where you should park. Other GPS navigation systems will only say something like, “You have reached your destination.” which is not useful at all since you’re obviously still in the car at that time. It also reads the names of the streets so that you can look at the signs to find the turn (instead of judging distance) even while your phone is in your pocket with your audio routed to a motorcycle helmet.
iGuidance 2009 comes with the latest Navteq Q4 2008 maps and works on wm5/6/6.1 Professional devices with 240×320, 320×240, 480×640, and 640×480 screen resolution. Unfortunately it does not support 800×480 or other screen resolutions at this time. Feel free to contact iGuidance if you want them to add more resolution support.
Another slightly unfortunate change is that iGuidance no longer includes any kind of map loader software. It comes on a MicroSD card and requires you use that specific MicroSD card in order to run. This means you won’t be able to use it on the HTC Touch Diamond or other devices that don’t include a memory card slot. The good news is, the maps take up less than 2Gb and you can order the software on 8Gb, 4Gb, or 2Gb memory cards. So you’ll still have plenty of storage card space for music, movies, TV shows, and other files.
As for the user interface design, it’s still straight out of 2000, but since the voice prompts are so accurate and easy to understand, I’m willing to sacrifice GUI eye-candy for functionality. Heck, the point of a GPS navigation program is that you shouldn’t be looking at the screen at all while operating a vehicle and iGuidance’s voice prompts do that better than any in-car computer or PND I’ve seen.
Visit the iGuidance website to order.
Originally published on Pocketnow on January 20, 2009. More Software articles from the Pocketnow archive.