Price: $2.99 Score: 9/10 Category: Navigation
If you’re used to squinting down at nearly indecipherable directions on your phone’s small interface or toting your laptop around in the passenger’s seat as one of my friends is notorious for doing (he always buckled it in and prayed the battery wouldn’t run out), MotionX-GPS Drive HD is your saving grace.
Much cheaper than a GPS and great for it’s dynamic NAVTEQ maps constantly updated through Bing, this is a great option for all your directional needs. The easy to use spin wheel allows users to choose between finding gas, dinner (by cuisine), airports, parking, hospitals, coffee, or just entering in a specific address.
From there everything is as simple and straightforward as anything you’d expect to see from any GPS. The app feeds live TrafficCast traffic updates to take traffic into account and even caches up to 2GB of data in case you temporarily lose 3G coverage somewhere along the way. MotionX also allows iPod integration so you can play music in the background and uses the compass to let users orient their maps so that North, South, East or West face up for readability.
Voice navigation is free for the first month, which means you’ll have just enough time to get hooked before needing to fork over a monthly $2.99 or $24.99 for the whole year.
On the whole, this is a great app with nice big buttons and one touch re-routing before you burn rubber, remember that you must register before you’re granted navigational access to this app. They only ask for your email and a password, and if you subscribe to turn by turn voice directions you have that feature on both the iPad and iPhone.
Bottom Line: The MotionX- GPS Drive HD is comparable to GPS devices like Garmin and TomTom at a much lower price point. 9/10
