Blog: April 2018

Most of these posts were originally posted somewhere else and link to the originals. While this blog is not set up for comments, the original locations generally are, and I welcome comments there. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Dear navigator app...

Hello, save-me-from-trying-to-read-small-signs-in-traffic device, I really appreciate you. You have made a difference in helping me get around in unfamiliar locations. But there are a few things I'd like you to know.

1 - When you tell me to "stay left to stay left", I don't know what you're trying to communicate. "Take that not-very-obvious left-side ramp" would have been wonderful.

1a - It might have been more visible if it hadn't been raining heavily. I wonder how far we are from navigation apps responding to poor conditions by being more verbose?

2 - The desktop interface has a way to reroute, by dragging part of the path to another place on the map, but I could not figure out how to do that on my phone.

3 - But ok, the desktop interface has a "send to my phone" link. So I reasonably expected you to be pre-loaded with the route I'd carefully constructed.

4 - Instead, I got a list of directions that I guess I'm supposed to read while driving (nope!), but no "start" button to get the audio instructions that are the whole point of using the app.

5 - Playing "outsmart the app" by choosing destinations to force a particular route is not fun.

My group moved to a new office location last week. Today was my first time driving there from home. I helped with the move on Thursday, so I'd already driven home from there once and decided that the "best" path, while best in travel time, is not best for me, because of poor visibility in places. So I am very interested in finding an alternate route home. I found one via the desktop app but, well, getting my phone to implement it wasn't so straightforward. But tomorrow is another day.