First look at the HERE beta navigation app for Android

HERE is probably not a name that the average consumer recognizes.  However, most consumers are likely familiar with HERE's product. Their mapping products are found in the majority of in-dash navigation systems in the US and customers may have even purchased map updates from them at the navigation.com website without recognizing the HERE brand.

If you've used a Garmin, Navigon or Magellan GPS then you are a HERE customer and likely didn't know it.  HERE's maps power devices by those PND brands.

HERE seems to be making a push to establish themselves as a brand that consumers identify with. Having primarily been a B2B (business-to-business) brand, HERE finds themselves fighting for their survival against the powerful ecosystems that Google and Apple have created.

They share that fight with their historical business customers.  Both in-dash and PND navigation face huge challenges from the smartphone that contains Google Maps, Apple Maps, Waze and other free alternatives.  But the challenge for HERE is more than just a smartphone vs in-dash fight since soon Google and Apple will be making a play for the in-dash space as well through bluetooth-linked smartphone / in-dash hybrid telematics solutions known as Android Auto and Apple CarPlay.  This is becoming a war of ecosystems and presents a monumental challenge for HERE.  Establishing credible consumer brand recognition is a good first step.

HERE's challenge is enough on it's own but unfortunately for HERE they've also been part of changing corporate bureaucracies which is tough for any company trying to be laser-focused on their goals.  Long in the hands of Phillips, HERE was known as Navteq in the hayday of PND's (and as NavTech before that).  Around 2007, Navteq was purchased by Nokia and got caught up in Nokia's disintegration which took nearly 5 years to play out.  Oh what might have been!  In 2012 Navteq became HERE (the only thing left now of what was once Nokia) as the Nokia brand marched towards the storied end in 2014 after Microsoft's purchase of the remaining pieces.  Got that?

The purpose of explaining that history is that in same ways, to the consumer, the emergence of the new HERE consumer brand really does represent something new.  Perhaps, give their tumultuous history, that is exactly what HERE needs - a fresh start.

What does their first attempt at this fresh start look like?

HERE for Android is a navigation play that competes head-to-head for the same customer as Google Maps and Waze.  HERE brings one significant advantage though, offline maps, providing users with the ability to use navigation without a data connection.  Whether you are out of mobile phone range or out of mobile data allotment, offline maps can be an important option to have.

HERE is certainly not the first to offer offline maps for Android.  Scout (Telenav) offers offline maps (now using OpenStreetMap) as does ALK Copilot, TomTom and Sygic (using TomTom maps).  Interestingly, HERE was beat to Android in recent months by one of their own customers, Garmin with the viago app. It is a crowded market to enter in 2014 but there can be no argument that HERE enters it with one of the most well respected maps datasets available (albeit one that most consumers have never heard of).  Check out my 8-device road test from back in 2012 where Navteq-powered Garmin killed the competition.

It is important to note that you don't have to download the HERE maps.  HERE works just fine as an online solution as well, sending the maps to your smartphone over your data connection.

HERE does a nice job of allowing flexibility in which maps to download.  The storage needed to store maps is tremendous so you are going to need a smartphone with lots of capacity (or an external SD card) to download a lot of maps offline. The entire US for example is nearly 5 GB but luckily HERE allows you to pick individual States for much more modest sized downloads.  It is curious how much bigger the HERE maps are compared to the Garmin viago maps.  It makes me wonder what else is in the HERE map dataset that we just aren't seeing yet with the immature feature set of the HERE beta app.

My experience with the HERE beta app so far has been that the app is very fluid, fast and stable.  I've had no crashes, lock-ups or stuttering.  The map is cleanly presented on the screen in a readable way. It does a nice job of showing road classes using distinct color.  You can compare the HERE map with Google Maps:

HERE

Google Maps

HERE offers three different map views in addition to the view shown above: Traffic, Transit and Satellite views.

HERE map view options

Google Maps has made huge strides in presenting traffic directly on the map in recent versions and thankfully HERE has tried to the do the same thing by showing the actual traffic flow on the map.  In my opinion, Google does a better job of presenting traffic flow while still preserving the color differentiation between various road classes.  When turning traffic view on, HERE's map tends to get too muted for my taste but this is strictly a personal preference.

HERE w/ traffic view on

Google Maps w/ traffic view on.

Notice the granularity difference in the traffic flow between Google and HERE.  It is tough to make an accuracy argument between the two but there is no question that Google Maps is purporting to know more about the current traffic conditions over a wider range of roads than HERE is.  Again - accuracy can be debated.

It the current beta version the HERE maps offers a pretty bare bones navigation experience. Here is a look at HERE's main app menu:

HERE menu in MAPS mode

It is nice to see HERE making some attempts to be consistent with the "Android experience" in terms of app UI.  Unfortunately that is only true for the MAPS functionality of the app.  Clicking into DRIVE mode on the menu above feels like you are using a completely different app.  The "close to Android-standard feel" is abandoned for this:

Setting in DRIVE mode.

And worse yet, the DRIVE mode settings button brings up a different-but-the-same settings menu that duplicates some of the settings in the MAPS mode settings but presents them with a different UI.  It is like two different teams developed MAPS and DRIVE and then put the two pieces together in the app.

Here is what the MAPS mode settings menu looks like:

MAPS settings menu

Here is what the DRIVE mode settings menu looks like:

DRIVE mode settings

Different fonts. Different text sizes. Different colors. The problems here are numerous and obvious.  Note that the MAPS settings menu above actually has a Navigation setting too (why, when you also have DRIVE settings?).  Worse, the same items are present in both menus but called different things.

In the MAPS menu it is called Voice Navigation but in the DRIVE menu it is called Voice Options.  They control the same thing.  In the MAPS menu Day/night view has it's own option but in the DRIVE menu it is buried within the Map options menu.

Worse, despite both menus having some of the same functionality the UI for that common setting is different depending upon which menu you started in.

This setting fiasco distracts from an otherwise pretty decent app and I simply don't understand it.  I've used a ton of PND's and navigation apps over the years and I can't think of a single reason why there needs to be two different settings menus within the same app.

Hang with me because this is by far their worst of the app.  It gets better from here (for HERE!).

There are the usual suspects present in the Route Options setting but strangely missing is commuter lanes.  I am not sure why, but I hope that finds itself into the app quickly, as it is an irreplaceable feature found in both TomTom's and Garmin's Android apps.

No commuter lane route options

Searching in the app
The main map screen has a search field.  HERE did a great job with the search field, making it a universal search.  You can type in an address, a POI name or a category and it will show you the results.  This is well done.  It is a giant leap forward from Garmin's archaic address entry system in their viago app that requires you to separately enter the house number, street name, city and state like you had to do 10 years ago in a Garmin PND.  Bravo HERE, for implementing universal search.

In this version, universal search does not include your contacts sadly.  I hope that we see this feature added in a future version.  That does not mean that you can't easily use HERE to navigate to a contact though.  Thankfully, even in this early beta, HERE has registered the app as an Android intent handler, which means it is one of the apps available to "handle your intent" when you click on an address in a 3rd party app.  In this screen shot, I clicked on an address in my Nexus 5's People app (you could do the same in your calendar or Yelp or TripAdvisor, etc.) and HERE is one of the apps that can fulfill my request when clicking on the address:

HERE as an Android intent handler option

In all of my attempts, HERE accurately parsed the address that I sent it from 3rd party apps.  When you combine this with Android's ability to search apps from the homescreen's search box you can get addresses from 3rd party productivity apps into HERE pretty quickly.

Whether you have searched from within the HERE app, or passed HERE an address from a 3rd party app, this is screen that you are shown once you have found a single search result:

HERE search results

One criticism of HERE is that from this screen, it takes way too many clicks to actually start navigating.  Your path to begin navigation is to click the "two-headed arrow" near the bottom right.  HERE needs to take a play from Google Map's playback:  if I long-press on this two-headed arrow (rather than single press it) HERE needs to immediately begin navigation to the best route HERE selects using a default navigation method (auto, transit or walking).  At this point in time, it does not provide this feature.  Instead, upon clicking the arrow you come to this screen:

Route options screen

On this screen you are presented with multiple route options as well as options to pick your means of travel (auto, mass transit or walking).  These are all great options.  I am merely making the point that there should be a streamlined way to bypass all of this for routine auto routes using the default settings.

Also in the screen above you can see that there is an ability to change your "don't include" route restrictions as well as go to settings.  (I wonder which settings menu THIS will take me to?)

Your path to navigation continues by clicking the route you desire from the screen above.  Unfortunately, you are still not quite ready to navigate though.  For some reason HERE has decided to visually show me the routes that were just shown to me in a list in the prior screen.

A second route selection screen

Similar to my complaint about duplicate settings menus, now HERE is showing me basically the same information on this screen as the screen before only in a graphical format.  By sliding the black section of the screen to the left, the second route option's information is displayed. There is nothing wrong with this screen.  It is presented clearly and conveys meaningful information.  However, it duplicates information that I was just shown in a previous screen and it further delays the start of my navigation experience.

Personally, I'd much prefer coming directly to this screen. I like pictures so I like to see the visual representation of the route options.  Should I desire to change to transit or walking then I'd gladly hit a button here to take me to that selection, but I'd rather not waste a step being presented with that every single time I calculate a route.

Google Maps has figured out an elegant way to present the content of both of these redundant HERE screens on a single screen and quickly begin navigation.  I hope that HERE spends some time optimizing this in the app.

I've noticed some very strange results when searching for places rather than addresses.  For example, I often receive no results when searching for things that are plentiful in my area.

No Eat & Drink near me?

No place to Go Out?

It also only found a single result when I entered the word "mall" in the search field.  The one result it did find was a quality search result because the place doesn't actually have the word "mall" in the name but it is the showcase mall in the metro.  However, it didn't find other malls in the immediate area that actually contain "mall" in their name.

Only found one place when searching "mall"

However, when I searched specifically for "Merle Hay Mall" and "Valley West Mall" then they were located when they could not be found when searching only for the word "mall."

Not found when searching only for "mall"

Also not found when searching only for "mall"

Other searches worked as expected.  Here is an example of the results of searching for "subway."  It shows the closest one by default and you can swipe the banner at the bottom to the left to cycle through the search results.

The navigation map is well done.  It is fluid and presents the information clearly.

Navigation screen

There is very limited functionality available during navigation in this current beta iteration.  When you click on the information bar at the bottom of the navigation screen these are your options:

Navigation mode options

The "show" icon is a toggle for traffic flow lines, "Customize" takes you to a setting menu that allows you to customize the information shown on the screen while navigating (and while "roving" the map without navigating as HERE calls it).

You can also activate a new "alternate route" calculation manually from this screen which is nice to see.  I have not yet faced a routing situation where traffic has created a different, quicker route so I can't comment on how the app handles that situation.

Additional Features (or not)
The list of features not yet in this beta app is long.  You won't find any PND features such as detours, route avoidance or via points.  The app doesn't support multi-stop routes.  I haven't seen any evidence of signpost imagery or lane guidance.

I have experienced the 3D buildings and found the app to be extremely quick and fluid in displaying the building models.

When browsing the map, the map is "live" in terms of being able to long-press anywhere on the map and receive the address of that location (ready to begin navigation) just like you had searched for that location.

Any location (place, address, etc.) can be saved to a "Collection" or "favorite" as I typically think of it.  Collections can be categorized as desired.

You can also share any location that you have selected within the app.  Sharing can be via the standard Android sharing options but the HERE app has a special bonus.  You can also share through built-in Glympse functionality. While this is a nice feature, I hope that the integration between HERE and Glympse improves.  As it exists today, you must select the amount of time to share through Glympse just like if you were using the standalone app.  However, this is a navigation app.  The app knows my ETA. The app should be able to share through Glympse until I've arrived at my destination without me having to manually adjust the time.

Lastly, there is no functionality in the current version of the app to display POI's outside of a search. I like to travel with gas station, food and rest stop POI's visible on the map.  That option doesn't exist in the app yet.

There is no ability to download maps in the background while doing other things in the app.  Leave the screen and you cancel your download.  On initial map download be prepared to give up use of your device for awhile.

Incremental Map Updates!!!!!
HERE deserves a massive round of applause for introducing incremental map updates in the app.  That means that users can download new map content to the app but only have to download the portion of the map that is new or changed.  Say goodbye to the days of downloading massive 5GB map updates every time there is an update.  Incremental map updates was something that I blogged about back in 2012 and it is great to finally see someone implement it.  I have not yet read anything that confirms how often incremental map updates will be available or if we'll have to periodically download full map datasets every so often with incremental updates in between (similar to TomTom's MapShare program and ALK's MapSure method).  I hope not, but we will see.  Having small incremental map updates available every couple weeks goes a long ways towards competing with the near instantaneous nature of Google's MapMaker program.

Final Thoughts
One item that HERE should clarify is exactly how offline mode works.  It appears, though I have no way of knowing, that the app is either 100% online or 100% offline.  The confusion stems from the warning received when activating "Use app offline."  This warning indicates that the data connection will not be used.  Does this mean that when I am online and using the data connection (i.e., for traffic, search, etc.) that I am also being served ONLINE maps rather than the maps that I've already downloaded?

My preferred mode of use would be to use the downloaded maps where I've downloaded them irrespective of whether I am in online or offline mode.  I'd prefer to use offline maps where I have then and still use the data connection for traffic, search, etc.  I'd only want to use online maps in areas where I haven't downloaded any maps.  This would lighten the data load but still make data available for other uses within the app.

It is unclear how this works and I hope HERE will clarify.

Conclusion:
This app has good bones.  The app is extremely fluid, fast, clean and stable.  The map is very readable. It seems to be a great base to build from.  I think HERE needs to clean up the horribly confusing two-settings menus issue.  I also hope that they quickly streamline the steps it takes to actually begin navigation.  Contact integration is something that I hope is coming soon. And the "must have" feature if you are going to effectively compete with Google Maps is voice recognition.  Interestingly Google just announced that Google Now will have ability to be used with 3rd party apps.  That might present a great opportunity (combined with HERE's universal search feature) to make the primary interface to HERE your voice.  That would be huge.

The app has a long way to go in terms of features if the goal is a PND-like experience on our smartphone.  But lucky for HERE, in my opinion, NO ONE in this space has nailed it yet.  Everyone comes close but falls short of "my perfect solution." HERE has a chance.

Over time, I could see this app earning some dedicated storage on my phone.  I hope that this is successful enough to continue to get development resources because competition is good for the consumer.