TomTom for iPhone Rocks

Ever since I was "forced" to upgrade to an iPhone 3G (long story for another post), I've been impatiently waiting for turn-by-turn driving directions.

We have older cars without built-in navigation systems, and I don't need one often enough to justify yet another device, so having an app on the iPhone is perfect. I was hoping for turn-by-turn directions to be added to the built-in map application in 3.0, which obviously didn't happen. The TomTom app was announced though, and that sounded great except the part about it not be ready yet. I didn't really consider the AT&T app when it came out, both because of the monthly cost and because it requires network connectivity to work (lame). I considered the Navigon app when I heard about it, but was put off by some of the reviews and the fact that Apple appeared to favor TomTom. In the spirit of "pick your battles" I follow Apple's lead unless I have a good reason not to, so I waited...

When I heard on Sunday night that the app had been released in NZ, I figured it would be available in the US on Monday. Sure enough, it was! Perfect, I had a use for it Monday morning so I bought it and started downloading... and downloading... I had to leave before it finished. I did get it installed when I returned later that day, but other than playing around with it while walking to the dog park I didn't have another use for it until this morning...

It's great! I don't even need the car kit since I'm lucky enough to have a cup holder perfectly positioned to hold the iphone and I get a good GPS signal in that location. The only improvement I'd like to see is text-to-speech for the street names and I don't see why they won't be able to do that someday. Very happy.