| Living in Europe, I have yet to see a smart navigation app, which would allow to take into account: - tolls and fuel consumption (Via Michelin is great at offering 2-3 routes with different and realistic costs, but the app is an ad-nest and their navigator is bad; Here can avoid tolls but the UI is bad; Google Maps is useless if you want to optimize the costs). - altitude changes (a marginally shorter road which has to climb and descent 1000 m / 3000 ft is not the same as doing extra distance on the flat ground). - the shape of the road, prefer wider and more direct roads (there are many narrow and extremely curvy roads that can't be driven fast, and some may be very stressful to drive). - the realistic median speed as an estimator (not the speed limit; sometimes it is set unrealistically high; also do not assume that all tarmac roads are equivalent). - local and temporary traffic restrictions (respect car-free hours in some areas and restrictions on a particular kind of vehicle or engine). - eventual stops during long trips Google Maps is far from an ideal navigation app at this point. The only reason it is used, IMO, is the abysmall UI experience in built-in car navigators. (Anecdotal evidence: I rented a car last week, it took me five minutes to enter destination, and then I couldn't figure out how to interrupt navigation. Eventually just used the phone to drive around). Tl;dr: Dear Google, Waze, etc., distance is not everything. |