Most drivers who own cars with built-in GPS systems use phones for directions
1–10 of 393 posts
Re: Most drivers who own cars with built-in GPS systems use phones for directions
#2It never made sense to me why you'd want to have a built-in GPS these days when modular devices are available that are A. generally better-designed and B. replaceable. People buying used cars in the coming years will be stuck with these big-screened dinosaurs in their dash that are essentially wasted space.
Re: Most drivers who own cars with built-in GPS systems use phones for directions
#3Have you seen the UI on some of these built-ins? Awful.
Re: Most drivers who own cars with built-in GPS systems use phones for directions
#4My maps app on my phone gets much more frequent updates than the maps fucntion in my car. Saying that I do use my in car nav system, I just rely on googlemaps for traffic data and redirections,
Re: Most drivers who own cars with built-in GPS systems use phones for directions
#5Volkswagen wants to charge me ~$250 for an update to my in-car GPS. Yeah, no. My phone's GPS is free (effectively) and constantly up-to-date.
Re: Most drivers who own cars with built-in GPS systems use phones for directions
#6I got so frustrated with horrible GPS systems that I just bought a Sony car stereo that has a phone holder on it: http://www.androidpolice.com/2014/05/25/sonys-xspn1bt-double...
Re: Most drivers who own cars with built-in GPS systems use phones for directions
#7It never made sense to me why you'd want to have a built-in GPS these days when modular devices are available that are A. generally better-designed and B. replaceable. People buying used cars in the coming years will be stuck with these big-screened dinosaurs in their dash that are essentially wasted space.
The big screens and not-required data connections are convenient. There are also local oddities to GPS e.g. in Japan GPS are keyed on landlines and mapcodes (proprietary GPS-ish codes) not addresses.
OTOH the interfaces of built-in navs &al tend to be unmitigated disasters.
At the end of the day, phone integration (Android's Auto and Apple's CarPlay) are probably what you want.
Re: Most drivers who own cars with built-in GPS systems use phones for directions
#8It never made sense to me why you'd want to have a built-in GPS these days when modular devices are available that are A. generally better-designed and B. replaceable. People buying used cars in the coming years will be stuck with these big-screened dinosaurs in their dash that are essentially wasted space.
although i don't use it for directions, i use the digital map every time i drive. i drive a higher end car which has two maps, one in the center console and one in the instrument pod. i set the the instrument pod to show a top-down zoomed in dynamic heading version and the console map shows a bird's eye zoomed out fixed north version. very useful.
also satellite radio and weather/traffic is useful. if i want directions my phone will play them audibly over bluetooth while i look at my dash map (it's the same map!)
i think any car with bluetooth and a halfway decent regular map will be useful for years to come. my parents have a 10 year old car with a map that's still useful for basic nav.
Re: Most drivers who own cars with built-in GPS systems use phones for directions
#9It simply makes no sense to use in-car GPS. Updates are free (some car markers charge them) and fast for mobile apps. There's a little tradeoff (privacy) though.
Re: Most drivers who own cars with built-in GPS systems use phones for directions
#10Bad UI, quickly out-of-date data, required trip to dealer to update said data, and lack of traffic awareness makes them just useless compared to something like Waze.