Hands On with NDrive USA for iPhone

I’ve always liked the idea of GPS systems for your car, I could just never bring myself to drop the coin on one. I know they’re much less expensive now, and decent units can be had for under a $100; I guess I’m just cheap. So naturally I was excited to get my hands on NDrive for the iPhone, I mean the iPhone does everything else, why not let it tell you where you’re going too?

NDrive USA is a fully functional voice navigation system that lives right on your iPhone. And it lives large too: it takes up quite a bit of space at just over a gig and half. The creators advise downloading it through iTunes and I would have to agree; it took several minutes with cable internet. It was a breeze to setup though, and I had myself ready for a test drive in almost no time flat.

If you’re at all familiar with navigation systems then you’ll likely be able to jump right into using NDrive with little fuss. I’m not exactly what you’d call a GPS system guru, like I said I like idea of having one, but as it is I’ve only played around with a couple of units on a few occasions. Still, I found the interface very easy on the eyes and intuitive; I had no problems firing up the app and setting a course for a destination.

NDrive works like any navigation system, you just start searching for the address of your destination and NDrive will go to work trying to match it with what it has in its database and then calculate a route for you. I was quite impressed with NDrive’s auto-complete feature and the breadth of its knowledge of streets and locations.  Searching is a breeze and many times, just by typing in a few letters the app will present you with several choices, one of which is bound to be right! Since I jumped in without really reading any of the instructions I was a little confused by the difference between NDrive’s Find and Navigate functions. If you want to get rolling toward your destination go ahead and choose Navigate; once you input the address the app will automatically start calculating a route for you and you’ll be good to go. The Find function will bring up the address you’re looking for but only show it and the surrounding area on the map screen without actually calculating a route for you. I’m not sure of the actual usefulness of this and I didn’t really use it.

I won’t cover many of the features of NDrive as that info can be had elsewhere much more easily (here). One particular thing I would like to mention is the NDrive Store can allegedly be accessed directly from the app; however, at the time of this review I could not connect to the Store for some reason. Hopefully this will be fixed soon as the store is said to contain additional maps and downloadable voices, among other things you can use to spruce up your navigation experience. Ndrive also conveniently stores locations you’ve previously navigated to which makes it super easy to get a route, say back home on a return trip, or if you need to find an intermediate destination.

I had an excellent opportunity to test NDrive on a trip to Columbus, OH with some friends for a Pearl Jam concert recently. At first she (I chose Mary, the female British voice…I have a thing for the accent OK?) seemed a little buggy or out of sync, with her turn instructions lagging a bit behind which was confusing a couple of times. Coming into downtown Columbus we missed a couple of turns due to this lag effect, but Mary seemed to have no problems rolling with the punches and adapted a new route with relative ease and we eventually made it to our destination with very little trouble.

A couple of features I found incredibly handy while on route was NDrive’s Lane Assistance which highlights the appropriate lanes for your upcoming merge or exit on the highway and the stress reducing display of images of upcoming signs so you don’t miss your next exit.

I probably haven’t tapped into half the potential of NDrive for the iPhone and one of these days I’ll have to sit down and read the manual, but so far I have been nothing but impressed by its in-depth map coverage, incredible ease of use, and the convenience of having a voice navigation system with me where ever I have my phone. NDrive is a little pricey as apps go at $32.99 from the App Store [iTunes link], but considering the robust set of features and user friendliness of the darn thing I can’t help but recommend it to one and all. If you’ve been looking for a convenient navigation system but haven’t felt like spending a hundred dollars or more, NDrive may be just what you’re looking for.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 16th, 2010 at 8:29 am and is filed under Apple iPhone, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.