I bought
Navigon turn by turn GPS for iPhone for 105chf with maps for the whole of Europe.
I was initially reluctant to pay this amount for an iPhone app especially since TomTom is not yet out and I thought I should wait to see what that offers but the limited time offer got the better of me.
I have previously had a pretty good SirfIII bluetooth GPS receiver and TomTom running on a Nokia phone (and before that on a Treo) as GPS which has been really good, it's got me to different places in the UK, all over France and all over Germany pretty much without fault. It could also get reception just about anywhere so I have pretty high expectations of GPS.
Initial thoughts on Navigon: It blows my 3 year old TomTom out of the water, really. I'm really impressed.
Navigon is not exactly a feature rich GPS but for me at least the fetures they have incorporated are the useful ones. It has a basic address search, a take me home feature (never put your exact address in since I assume your car keys have your front door key on the same keyring) and you can enter waypoints. The points of interest seem to be pretty comprehensive and it shows the logo of shops (it has the new Aldi near me) which is a really good way to identify them quickly (TomTom just listed a shop). It can also goto addresses from your contacts.
I have tried two mount points, in the cup holder (so slightly forward of the dash) and then mounted to the windscreen on a suction holder. Both seemed to give good performance indistinguishable from my dedicated GPS receiver with the benifit of aGPS so it aquires a signal almost immediately.
As far as performance goes the app takes about 30 seconds to load after which you robably have a GPS signal immediately. Route planning seems really quick. A route from Uster to a spefic adress in Paris took about 25 seconds to plan, a route from Zürich to Odense in Denmark took about 30 seconds to to plan. Driving around town if you go the wrong way the replanning is immediate, I can't even count how long it takes, less than a second. I'm not sure how this compares to missing a motorway exit, as I've yet to try that, which brings me neatly onto the best feature.
What you see above in the picture is what Navigon call "Lane Assist Pro" and "Reality View Pro". Anybody who has used GPS before will know how it works, you get a lot of roads marked out in roughly 3D and you follow the line you are meant to be on. Navigon is the same but when you get to your exit juntion on the motorway it changes to the view above, you see the lanes and the road signs exactly as you do on the road. It works brilliantly. TomTom used to get confused when it would tell me "take the exit" when actually the road was splitting, the lines aren't much help at positioning you in lane and I have made wrong turns due to this. Navigon have solved this problem, so kudos to them.
I'm happy with my (not insignificant) 105chf purchase and really recommend this for anybody with an iPhone 3g looking for a Nav app. The only downside I see for now is the app takes a lot of space (it seems 3Gb for me but I think that is wrong and it'll read about 1.6gb after another sync). TomTom is going to have to really push the boat out to beat this app.
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