The Sygic Aura app for Android features 3D building and terrain data.
One of the first and biggest hurdles any third-party navigation app will need to clear on Google's
Android
platform is Google itself. While this may not be the case with other
mobile OSes, Android (or at least devices running version 1.6 or better)
comes more or less bundled with Google's free Google Maps with
Navigation app. So, why would a user go out of their way to check out
another navigation app? So, of course, this is the first question I
asked when evaluating the Sygic Aura GPS navigation app.
Aura lists for free in the Android Market and is a 3.3MB download.
However, that's not the full story. After installing, users must also
download the maps for their area. I chose to download only maps of
California and Nevada, which occupied 263MB and 40MB of my SD card,
respectively. Maps of all of the continental United States would take up
to 2GB. Sygic recommends you perform these downloads over Wi-Fi, but we
were able to grab our maps over 3G. Fortunately, the app allows users
to resume incomplete downloads.
The obvious advantage of having locally stored maps is that they
only have to be downloaded once, which means that even if you find
yourself outside of your carrier's coverage area, you can continue to
navigate. This is also advantageous to users who don't have an
all-you-can-eat data plan and need to closely monitor their download
allowances or those who find themselves roaming in a foreign country and
need to keep charges down.
The investment in the Aura app doesn't stop with a few megs of
storage space. Additionally, after a 7-day trial, the app will prompt
the user to purchase an activation key. For the United States' regions,
that means shelling out 19.99 euro ($27.44 U.S. at time of publication).
Yeah, we also see the oddity in paying for North American maps with
European currency.
If you're the sort of user who falls into either of the previously
mentioned categories (world roamer or data miser) and the money you
could save on roaming or data overages meets or exceeds the 20 euro
you'd spend on this app, then it's worth your consideration. Read on!
The navigation experience
Upon loading the Sygic Aura app, I was greeted with a beautifully
rendered map of the area around me. In downtown San Francisco, that map
included 3D representations of most of the buildings around me with
noteworthy buildings that serve as landmarks getting more detailed,
premium models. The app, rather smartly, reduces the height of the
closest buildings, allowing users to focus more clearly on the road
instead of on the graphic eye candy.
POI icons litter the map screen, but not in a way that distracts from
readability--of course, users can always opt to disable the POI icons
in a menu. In the upper left corner of the map is a small weather widget
that shows the current temperature and an icon for the conditions (for
example, a sun for "sunny").
With a destination chosen, Aura gives the user spoken turn-by-turn
directions, but without the aid of a text to speech (TTS) engine. So,
while Aura can say "take the next exit to US 101," it can't say "then
turn left on Mission Street." This led to a few missed turns when the
upcoming lefts and rights were in rapid succession in dense urban areas.
Aura also notifies you when you've exceeded the speed limit with a
chime and sounds a warning for nearby traffic and speed cameras. With
the touch of a button, users can also report police traps or incident
locations to be shared with other Sygic users.
There are a few interface annoyances that bear mentioning. Firstly,
the app runs full screen, which means that it hides the Android
notification bar when in map mode, so you won't be able to monitor, for
example, your phone's battery while navigating. When in the menus, there
is a Sygic status bar along the top edge of the screen with battery
state, GPS signal strength, and the time, but users are unable to
interact with this bar.
Aura uses its own onscreen keyboard, instead of the user's chosen input method.
However, while I can sort of understand Sygic's need to hide the
notification bar--after all, you won't need to check for e-mail while
driving--there's one interface change that the app brings that I can't
get past: the onscreen keyboard. When inputting information, the Aura
app ignores the user's selected input method and presents its own
keyboard. So those of us who've grown accustomed to using the stock
Android keyboard, a custom keyboard (such as Swype or SwiftKey), or
Google's voice input will be forced to use Sygic's arguably inferior
input method. For some this will be a small issue, but for me it was
jarring--slowing my inputs significantly.
Multitasking and the destination bug
If you leave the app (either by hitting the Home button or if a phone
call interrupts), navigation is suspended. When you return to
navigating, the app will have to reinitialize (about 5 seconds on my
first-generation Motorola Droid), reacquire GPS position (another second
or so), and recalculate its route (2-3 seconds more). This adds up to
about 10-seconds before navigation resumes, which wouldn't be so bad if
Aura was still pointing you in the right direction. Unfortunately,
that's not always the case.
Aura seems to be rather inconsistent with exactly what destination it
will grab upon resumption of routing. For example, on day one of my
testing, Aura successfully got me from work to a friend's home in San
Francisco. Then the next day, while following Aura's instructions to a
client meeting in Cupertino, I had to answer a phone call (hands-free,
of course). When routing resumed, Aura had reset my destination to the
friend's house from the previous day. In fact, it continued to reset our
destination to that same friend's house with every subsequent
navigation session for the duration of our testing. Perhaps the app is
trying to tell me something about this particular friend, but that's
highly unlikely.
Proper multitasking would be the best solution to this problem,
but--at the very least--that route resumption bug needs a second look.
Social networking and communication
Aura integrated with our Android contacts, allowing me to browse for
friends with stored addresses as potential destinations. However, while
the app could display my contacts and their addresses flawlessly, it ran
into issues when attempting to translate the stored addresses into
points on the map--the app would give a "no address found" error
message, despite the fact that an address was visible. This meant that I
was often forced to reinput the address before I was able to navigate,
which sort of defeats the purpose of address integration.
Although the contact entry clearly shows an address, Aura threw a "No address found" error.
Also rolled into Aura is Sygic's own Aura social network, which
allows users to add friends with whom they can share their location,
status, messages, and events. I'm not entirely convinced that I need yet
another social network to manage, but perhaps other users will find
some value here. For me, Foursquare, Facebook, or Twitter
integration--while not necessary--would be more warmly welcomed.
Is it worth it?
I'm still a bit hard-pressed to recommend Sygic Aura over Google Maps
to all but a very specific group of users: the data misers and world
roamers mentioned earlier. For these users, being able to get around
being tied to the cloud for map and address data could be worth the
price of admission. However, for the overwhelming majority of users,
Aura's bugs and quirks combined with the fact that users are being asked
to pay for what many have grown accustomed to getting for free, create a
huge barrier to entry.
