Mapquest Android App Lands For Free On The Market
Buy an Android Phone, use Google Nav, never buy another Garmin- that’s the thought process I think a lot of people have when looking at Android’s positives. Yes, I know there will be plenty of people saying that nothing can replace a dedicated GPS unit for many different reasons – reliability, size, map data, battery life etc… – but the bottom line is that in most cases Google Nav does a great job.
Remember Mapquest? I rarely ever use Mapquest anymore, almost exclusively using Google Maps on my computer and phone for everything I do that is location based. Yet, when talking to friends, I often accidentally tell them to “Mapquest it” much like I would tell someone to “Google it” for a search term.
Mapquest has just launched a free Android Application – they’ve had an iPhone app for awhile – and the app takes advantage of many of Android’s core competencies including:
- Turn-by-turn navigation with voice guided directions
- Voice search
- Attraction/Destination guide to find restaurants and whatnot
- Walking and driving directions
- Live Traffic
Google has a huge advantage in the mapping and navigation world right now, but nothing that can’t be overcome or no reason a competitor can’t reclaim a boat load of market share. Mapquest’s SVP and GM said their iPhone app is used as much as Google Navigation on the iPhone, a claim I can’t verify and I’m not sure if Christian Dwyer can either. There are some advantages to Mapquest over Google Maps/Nav, including leveraging OpenStreetMap data so they can much more easily provide international data.
Download Mapquest, give it a whirl, and let us know how you like it!
[Via SearchEngineLand]