MotionX GPS Drive 3.0: The Best Value GPS App Just Got Way Smoother [IPhone Apps]

When I reviewed MotionX GPS Drive for iPhone, I said it offered the best value but had some UI issues. Newly redesigned, the app's 3.0 version is far better—with landscape view and a more logical user interface.

Yes, the landscape mode I was lamenting its lack of in the last edition is there, and it looks great. As you can see, even pulling up iPod controls doesn't hog the screen. Remember, naysayers, it's not that you need widescreen for the road ahead, you need it for extra info, and you need it because it fits on the windshield better.

Time till arrival, distance till arrival and estimated time of arrival still all scroll through to the right of the "upcoming turn" text. I would prefer that I could pick one (I'm an ETA man—though not the Basque nationalist kind), but you can't do that, yet.

The interface has a nice menu system that shows more priority to things I really use, and buries things like Compass and iPod where they need to be, on the periphery of my awareness. The only thing I'm missing still is the ability to navigate to a point on the map. That may be a trick, but one worth pulling off. There isn't a lot of custom routing options in there yet, but if you really care about prioritization of stops, you should buy something more elaborate anyway—perhaps a portable GPS unit.

As you can see, even in portrait mode, the menus are cleaner:

All in all, it's a palpable improvement for a worthwhile product, especially one so durned cheap. That's right, it's still just $1, with $3/month or $25/year turn-by-turn voice service. You may hate GPS navigators, you may even hate GPS apps, but if you are on vacation and you don't have this app—at the very minimum, that is—you are just crazy. [Motion X GPS Drive iTunes Link]


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