Garmin Smartphone Link v1.3 - More problems

If you spend a few minutes reading my past blog posts, you'll see a history of documented problems with Garmin Smartphone Link. Unfortunately, tonight, with the v1.3 update, it is more of the same from Garmin. 

The phrase that ought to strike fear in every Garmin executive (and shareholder) is "good enough." In other words "Google Navigation is good enough." Or "Waze is good enough." You could even preface the comment with "It's no Garmin, but..."

Those apps move closer to be "good enough" for mainstream consumers in the following ways:

1. Garmin continues to try to sell a dedicated navigation device for the same price as a Samsung Galaxy S3 smartphone or for MORE than a Google Nexus 7.
2. The features of Google Navigation (or Waze or others) continues to improve while Garmin continues to artificially restrict software features on existing models to protect future hardware sales. 
3. Garmin becomes a pain in the ass to deal with.

Tonight, I have arrived at #3.

I've moved on from the Smartphone Link problems that I've described in detail in my blog. I've moved on from the ridiculous amount of effort it took for me to spoon feed the details of their problems to someone at Garmin that actually knew what Smartphone Link was. I was willing to forgive and forget. Then they do it again. They release v1.3 tonight and what do you know - more problems.

Smartphone Link v1.2 worked fine for me today on 3 different occasions. I updated to v1.3 tonight while enjoying the pot roast sandwich at Culver's (you should try it - it is good!) I jumped back into my car and the little Smartphone Link icon turned blue, the Smartphone Link icon on my Nuvi appeared and I was off - driving home.

Except....the temperature on my Nuvi was listed as "--" instead of the ridiculously hot 99 degrees that it is here. I went to the weather app on my Nuvi and I was greeted by an advertisement telling me all the great features of Advanced Weather. I know. I already bought it (twice actually).

I go to the Smartphone Link services icon on my phone and low and behold, all 4 services that I own and already used today are now shown with a price tag. My "subscribed services" are blank. As is typical with an in-app purchase, sometimes you have to let the app and the server communicate so that the server can tell the app "hey, app - this guy already purchased this feature - light it up for him chief." Except, I couldn't find a way to do that in the app.

I picked the cheapest service: "Advanced Weather" for $4.99 and selected purchase. I figured that I'd get into the process deep enough that at some point the server would inform the app that I purchased it already. Then I see the email notification from Google. I got a fresh, new, shiny $4.99 in-app charge.

I decided that I'd uninstall the Smartphone Link app and reinstall it. Maybe it was just a glitch. Upon reinstalling it, now I find even the $4.99 that I just purchased 2 minutes ago is no longer listed as subscribed. It too now shows up in services that I can purchase.

Since this is an in-app charge, there is no 15 minute return policy. I have to deal with Garmin. Well, I've been down that road before. Garmin, to this day, has never responded to double billing me. NOW, they have triple billed me.

So I call Garmin support on the phone. Guess what. They are only open from 8am - 6pm Monday through Friday. I'll be damned if I am going to take time off from work to sit in my car to trouble shoot their sloppy software development.

So for me, tonight, Garmin has officially fallen into #3 above - being a total pain in the ass to deal with.

I bit the bullet on #1 above - buying a $399 Nuvi after not owning one since the 885T. I've lived with my 3590 rebooting multiple times per week (yes, even after the latest firmware). Now I officially regret my purchase. Tonight it just crossed the threshold into "not worth it" territory. Google Navigation became "good enough" for me. Tonight I can see myself looking back on this day referring to the last Garmin I ever purchased.

Garmin should be better than this. Their products are priced at a premium. They are the world leader in consumer navigation. These sloppy problems should come from the #3 or #4 company in the industry, or the free app guys - not the supposed top player. Garmin should quit using their customers as beta testers. And they ought to try providing a 2012 level of customer service. Social media can be used for more than promoting your racing team you know!

Mapquest for Android - How does it stack up?

In my never ending quest to find the right navigation solution for my needs, I've been spending some time with the Mapquest app for Android.

The map has a lot to offer as well as some things that it needs to improve on.  Here is a quick look:

1. Full voice guidance including text-to-speech, auto-reroute, auto map rotation.
2. The use of your own TTS engine rather than a lower quality bundled TTS engine like you'll find in Waze for example.  For those of us that have purchased a higher quality TTS engine like SVOX, we can use our SVOX voices within Mapquest.  This also allows you to benefit from the pronunciation correction features of SVOX.  If a street name is pronounced wrong, just change it's pronunciation in SVOX!  Thanks Mapquest!
3. Voice search is provided, using the Google voice input feature.
4. Multi-step routing.  This is a great feature that is missing from Google Navigation. You can enter multiple stops in your route.  Mapquest needs to take this to the next level and allow us to save, edit and recall planned trips.
5. A robust traffic feed is in the app and comes from Inrix, a respected name in traffic content.  In my mid-market region of 500,000 people the Inrix feed is by far the most robust content of any traffic source on any device.  The traffic feed includes incident & flow data updated every 5 minutes.
6. The map is interactive meaning that you can long-press anywhere on the map and route to that point or save it as a favorite.  But unfortunately, it doesn't appear that the map has any auto zoom capability based on the distance to the next turn.
7. Mapquest has included a great use of Android shortcuts.  This allows you to add a one-touch icon to your home screen (or within a folder on your home screen) that is "pre-configured" to a specific destination address.  When you press this icon, Mapquest opens and begins navigating to that destination without further user intervention.
8. Android calendar and contact integration. When you press an address in your calendar, contacts, a 3rd party app or a website, if you have your navigation default preferences cleared in Android then Mapquest is one of the options to receive the address.  This passes the address directly to Mapquest from the source app without requiring the user to enter it or copy and paste it.
9. Mapquest's ETA seems very good.  My biggest complaint about Google Maps is their very conservative ETA's.  Mapquest seems to be right on with their ETA calculations.

The Mapquest app has improved greatly from its initial launch but it still has a ways to go.  Here are some things that need work in this app.

1. Voice search requires an extra step that shouldn't be necessary.  When you speak a search the Mapquest app uses voice recognition only to populate the search box with text.  It doesn't actually execute the search.  Therefore, the user has to touch the search button.  This is an unnecessary step while driving.  Contrast that to Google Navigation. When you speak a search, Google receives your voice, translates it to text and automatically executes the search.  If it isn't sure or there are multiple options, you are presented with a "Did you mean:" box of options.  Mapquest needs to remove this unnecessary step from its voice input workflow.
2. The text size used for street names in the Mapquest app is simply unusable and I have a 4.7" smartphone screen.  Both Google and Waze do a much better job with the readability of the street name text.  This remains the biggest downfall with the Mapquest map in my opinion.  When I navigate in an unfamiliar area, even though there is turn by turn guidance, I like to compare the street signs with the streets I see on the map to get a better feel for how many more blocks I have before my turn. This is impossible with the Mapquest app because of their problem display the text of street names.
3. Despite having a robust traffic feed from Inrix in the app, and despite Mapquest telling us that they use that data in determining routes and ETA's, to date, I have not found any evidence that Mapquest ever shows the user any indication of the impact of the traffic.  In other words, if there is traffic and it is impacting my ETA, Mapquest should tell me that.  Google does this by a simple black, red, yellow or green light.  ALK, in their CoPilot product, also using Inrix traffic, has perhaps the best implementation of this with their traffic bar on the side of the screen.  Not only does it tell you the traffic situation but does so graphically in a way that represents the distance the traffic is away from you.  If Mapquest is going to use this traffic content, I want to see how it is using it and impacting my route when I use the app.
4. The Mapquest app has no ability to show you multiple route options.  Everyone: Google Navigation, Waze, Telenav, Navigon and ALK has this now and it needs to be in the Mapquest app.
5. While the Mapquest app is integrated with contacts and calendar, it is not integrated with apps like Vlingo.  Mapquest can do this by themselves without Vlingo's cooperation.  On my Android home screen, when I long-press the search button it starts the Vlingo recognition app.  I can then speak "Navigate to 123 Main St, Anytown, USA."  Since I've cleared my navigation defaults, I am prompted by Android to pick an app to carry out my navigation request.  In that list is Google Navigation, Telenav and Garmin Smartphone Link (used with my Nuvi over bluetooth).  Mapquest needs to register this app within Android in a way that puts it on that list.  For the record Waze hasn't figured this out yet either.
6. Mapquest, like Telenav does, needs to leverage their online website and link it to their navigation app.  We should be able to define favorites, search and select destinations and create routes on the Mapquest website, all of which we should be able to send to the Mapquest app.  Mapquest is behind Google and Telenav in this regard.

Here are some questions that I'd love for Mapquest to answer:

1. Is Inrix used for real time traffic only or do your ETA's take historical traffic into account?
2. Does the use of the app send data back to Inrix for purposes of real time flow determination?
3. How does the deal with TomTom for map data impact the ETA?  Are you getting only raw map data from TomTom or does the data include IQRoutes data which then impacts the Mapquest ETA?

I like the Mapquest app.  It has potential to be a good app, especially given its quality ETA calculations and great Inrix traffic feed but it has some things it needs to improve on.