Spring is around the corner, which often means family vacations, road trips with friends and traveling more for business.
A GPS navigation unit in your vehicle can help you get to where you’re going quickly, accurately and safely – but not everyone wants to spend $100 or more for a good GPS nav unit or $50 for GPS smartphone software.
Guess what – you don’t have to pay anything at all.
A downloadable app called Navfree GPS Live Canada is the first free professional GPS navigation software for iPhone and iPad.
While not flawless, you’d be surprised how good this no-cost app is.
Navfree Canada from Geolife Ltd. gives you 2D and 3D maps (for the entire country), voice-based turn-by-turn instructions (so you don’t need to look at the screen), points of interest (such as restaurants, hotels, gas stations and tourist sites) as well as live Google Search (to find many other nearby places you might be interested in).
Unless you do a Google search, which requires a wireless connection, no data is used up for this GPS app as the maps are stored on your device.
Navfree uses map data from OpenStreetMap.org — often referred to as the "Wikipedia of map software" — as more than a quarter-million people contributed to it over the years. Therefore, there’s no cost to use the product, it’s continuously updated and you, too, can add to the map, as well, right from within the app.
The interface is quite clean, too. Aside from typing the word "Ontario" where it says "State" (er, this is the Canadian version of the software, so why not "Province"?), Navfree found the five addresses I typed in – in Toronto, Mississauga, Richmond Hill and Barrie – without a hitch. At least you can change "Miles" to "Kilometres" in the map's settings screen.
By default, it’s a British woman's voice but you can change it to other male and female voices and languages, too, if you like (15 in total, including French, Spanish, German, Italian, Dutch, and more). Note: It doesn’t say street names, but will tell you when to turn, such as in "1.2 kilometres or in 200 metres," etc. While hearing the directions you can also use your fingertips on the map to scroll ahead, switch between day and night maps (low glare maps are safer night driving) and even access your music library right from within the map (music fades in and out when the voice directions are playing).
Routing was fast and – for the most part – accurate. In one instance, I was about to hop on Highway 400 North from Woodbridge to drive to Barrie, but it was suggesting to go on Highway 407 east to some point. Huh? So, as with any GPS unit, general knowledge of your area is always helpful. But this was one instance out of an otherwise flawless experience.
Of course if you take a wrong turn or need to go on streets not recommended by the app (perhaps because of an accident or construction), it’ll automatically reroute for you.
Another issue is if you cross the border, you’ll have to close the app and open up Navfree U.S. version as this map is only for Canada. At least it's free, too.
There’s also a Pedestrian mode for when you’re on foot – for instance, it’ll say you can walk in either direction of a one-way street.
Other features of Navfree include the ability to send your route to a friend via email, text message, Facebook or Twitter; you can set a "Home" location to quickly get back to your home; and access a Navfree Store to purchase the "Ad-Free" version of Navfree for $1.99 – though I never saw one advertisement in this free version.
Overall, Navfree is an excellent – and free – GPS solution for iPhone and iPad owners.
