iGo My Way 2009 – Leave Your Car GPS Behind

iGo My Way solves a problem. The problem that it solves is the iPhone GPS problem. People want a GPS and aren’t satisfied with google maps can now be sated. iGo My way is the best gps program I’ve used for the iPhone. iGo is full featured, fully mapped, and ready to take you anywhere you want to go… within reason.

From the moment you boot up the program and set it up for the first time you can notive right away the design choice. The developer NNG Gobal Services consciously decided to design the app like a classic GPS. Large colorful buttons and the classic gps beep sound give the app the flavor of an actual gps device. The effect is subtle but psychologically makes you comfortable with the app as a GPS device. The North American Edition can take you anywhere in the US and Canada. The maps are part of the app. While this does make the app hefty in size (976 mb), it also means the maps don’t depend on cell coverage. Even if you “got no bars,” iGo can still take you to your destination.

iGo is has a suprising plethora of features. iGo has a four route- algorithms. It can route you via the easiest way (my favorite), the shortest way, the most economical way (go green) and the fastest way. They all work well and work like they say they do. You can also choose what kinds of roads to take. If you want to avoid tolls, you can. All the trimmings of GPS-unit are here, except text-to-speech. It doesn’t read the street names, however this hopefully can come in a future update. You can even select from a number of 3d models and 2d images to represent your car, for the 3d and 2d maps respectively. I drive around in a tank and this app lets me show that as my car.

The map is full screen and crisp and the route is easily identifiable on the roads. In the night mode option the maps remain crisp and clear. You can access a database of popular locations around you in its Points of Interest database. It is surprisingly adept finding places that my MIO GPS device didn’t. One area in which iGo surpasses my previous GPS Device is its tracking. iGo is very smooth while in motion and very accurate. As my car passed through an intersection, the 3d me in iGo did as well. Really top-notch tracking. iGo supports landscape view as well, it looks just as good perhaps even closer to an actual GPS.

I do want to mention one negative. iGo needs to remember that its on a phone. Why cant I choose a destination from my contacts? It seems like such an obvious omission. Why cant I call someone from the POI list?  Also, the battery becomes an issue on longer journeys, but that is more the phone. I had a cradle and car charger already for my car so that wasn’t issue for me. Lastly, I would like to add multiple destinations on a route. NNG has already promised updates so fingers crossed.

iGo is an extremely good replacement for a car GPS, it was even an improvement for me. Some may say that its going rate of $79.99 (USD) is a lot but its cheaper than most other GPS’s and iGo is one of the better ones.  From its clear maps and eerily-human voices to its smooth tracking and myriads of features, iGo is the best GPS turn-by-turn in the appstore.