Apple Maps Route Recalculation?

[DaveWT]

I do not own an iPhone so since my wife bought an iPhone 6s, I have had trouble answering her questions.

We have owned a couple of Garmin GPS units which work well, and our present Mazda 3 has a built in GPS which is somewhat less proficient, but both work more or less the same way. You set a route and start driving, hearing the spoken turn-by-turn directions. But if you decide to deviate from the route it builds, either system quickly detects the change and says "recalculating" before giving the new turn-by-turn instructions for the route you have chosen.

Today my wife decided to try Apple's Maps app on her 6S on a trip from home in the Cordova Bay area to a friend's place in Colwood. It started out OK and wanted her to proceed to Mackenzie and then out the Island Highway. But she chose to take Wilkenson to the Highway instead. Maps just shut up for all the time she was on Wilkenson and then started giving directions again as soon as she rejoined the original route at the Highway.

Is this a shortcoming of using Apple's Maps for navigation or have we overlooked a setting that allows it to "recalculate" and realize we really want to go a different way?

 

[tfindlay]

You may wish to try the Google Maps app. I find it to be much better that the Maps app. If you deviate from the route it has mapped out for you it immediately recognizes this and adjusts its directions accordingly. Maps is still evolving and it is getting better but, in my mind, it still has a way to go to reach the reliability of Google Maps.

 

[chas_m]

My experience is the opposite -- Google Maps has a tendency to either get me lost or give me a route I know is less efficient. Apple Maps works great here (and down in the states), though it lacks transit directions (but I'm referring to driving, mainly).

As for recalculating, if you deviate from the route, Apple Maps will just silently recalculate and speak up again when there's a turn to be made.

 

[DaveWT]

That is promising, but that recalculation of the route with the new turns spoken along the new route aspect will have to be investigated further.

As I mentioned, my wife's experience seemed to differ on a recent short trip. But we have agreed that the next time we go somewhere together, she will drive and I will "play" with her iPhone to see what really happens then.

 

[DaveWT]

We did a bit more experimentation tonight with the cellular data turned on, and following a route other than what the Maps initially suggested, does indeed cause an immediate recalculation (although it doesn't actually speak "recalculating" like my Garmin) with the new turns immediately given.

I think that when my wife had earlier found that diverging from the suggested route produced no new info, she was out of any wifi connections (of course) and had cellular data turned off. I guess we were not expecting that (cellular data) would be needed as the iPhone has its own GPS circuitry built in. Years of Garmin use (GPS only with no capability of wifi or cellular data) made us expect the iPhone could work the same. I guess she had started out from home (within our wifi) so that the maps downloaded as she started the route and then it was happy until she left the route that Maps had initially set up. I guess at that point it needs to pull down more map data perhaps to follow the new route? (Such as street names it hadn't previously expected to need.)

As to Terry's suggestion to try Google Maps, I know there are limitation to Apple's Maps but for now we want to learn to use that application. I think any app we use will seem limited compared to our full functioned Garmin GPS but the iPhone will always be with my wife even when the Garmin might not be in the car on any given day.

 

[Jentek]

My suggestion is to try Waze. It does what you want, so if you go off route it will recalculate and show a new route.

What I like about it is that you have 3 voice options
1. Voice guidance for all route
2. Voice only for change of direction (turn left, right etc) this is my choice always.
3. No voice at all.

Waze has many options, and it is spot on for estimating arrival time with its crowd sourced traffic info.

It will use your calendar and contacts if you want, so when you are ready to go to an appt, it suggests the right address.

Try it.
Steve

 

[DaveWT]

Thanks for the suggestion, Steve.

I am not sure how much the iPhone will actually get used for navigation. My wife normally drives our Mazda 3 which has its own built in GPS and I have our Garmin, so for the moment iPhone navigation is mostly a novelty.

But nice to hear of options if our situation changes in the future.

 

[Jentek]

If you drive into anywhere that is busy and timing is important then the real time traffic feedback is a real benefit with Waze. Regular GPSs in cars do not have that I believe.

There are other advantages, seeing where friends are as you all arrive at a destination, easy frequent updates (my old Tom Tom was a pita to update) - how do you update a built in car GPS (via a CD?)

 

[DaveWT]

Hi Steve,

Some of the better Garmins offer traffic info, either as a subscription service or for the higher end one, a lifetime feature. Not sure where they get their traffic info from though. I know that Waze uses feedback from people travelling the roads at about the same time you are, so is bound to be better.

As to updating a car GPS, in the case of our Mazda, we pop the SD card out, plug it into my Mac and run an application on the Mac to update the map info on the SD card. But car manufacturers are terrible at timely updates. I get 2 a year versus 4 a year for my Garmin and what you get seems to be a year or two out of date. I believe some other manufacturers require you to take the car to the dealer and they perform the update.

My Garmin isn't too bad. I just plug it into my Mac via USB and an app does the update. But it is very slow - an hour or more so you want to do it when there isn't much else going on.