CoPilot USA - GPS Navigation & Offline Maps App Reviews

Nice

used for vacation during my stay in USA (I come from France), I did not like it at all, quiet impossible to understand the display guiding without the vocal instructions. In Europe I use Navigon, HMI experience is higher.

I have to travel in US for a month next week ... Ive downloaded the maps and now the app dont even launch ... Very disappointed ... I hope that a new update will help me soon :-((

Wirklich tolle app, funktionierte ohne Probleme bei unserem Florida Urlaub im August 12!!!

Most navigation apps have a similar set of features and CoPilot has everything what one needs. But really convincing is the user interface and the usability. It is well designed for mobile phones and easy and intuitive to use. This puts CoPilot right on top of the navigation apps. Well done!

After visiting the site which says "Detailed street maps of the U.S. And Canada are stored on-board your iphone...". I did not see anything about an in app purchase for Canadian maps. I bought this app to find it was an extra $5 for the Canadian maps. Not too happy! Looks like a great nav app IF I could use it... Want money back please!

I have tried all other major gps ( navigon, tomtom, garmin) none can beat the price and the GUI is much improved. To the person complaining about 4.99$ for Canadian maps try looking up the other major gps software prices before you complain noob. I am in Canada and have found these to be the most up to date maps in my city ( Calgary). Bought this on sale 9.99.

- Initital review - I am a heavy Navigon user. This app is very promising and is the first to correctly find the fastest route from my house to work. Neither Navigon, Tomtom or Sygic can, they all make me use the highway and adding 20 kms and 8 minutes to he route. What is interesting here is that you can customize what kind of road to prioritize. Highway over secondary or local roads, and you can also tell it what speed you drive (110 kms) instead of 100 on highways. Anyhow, I will update this post after I used it more. Really like it so far!! UPDATE 1: Here are impressions after a few days. PLUS: - Overall nice clean UI and interface - Customizable vehicle types (including RV). When customized, choosing RV and car will calculate different routes (as it should). No other nav app I used does this, it just adds time to the trip. You can also tell it the height of your RV (for bridges). - You can tap a POI icon during navigation and it will show information and you can route to it. - REALLY fast recalculation. The other nav programs I used would assume you did the turn and follow the mapped route even if you did not do the turn. After 1-2 secs it recalculates, taking about 3-4 secs total when you missed the turn. Copilot doesnt assume you made the turn, so when you miss it it recalculates almost instantly. - The route calculation seems more logical than other nav programs. - It doesnt want you to do U-turns every 100 meters when you missa turn. Instead it routes you through streets. Big plus. - Navigate to a picture you took with the iPhone. - MyCopilot, where you can send feedback, have news and update (hopefully), submit map errors (found lots). - TTS voice (UK) is the best I have heard. - Navigation info seems really clean and efficient - You can save a route. - You can optimize a route with multiple stops. MINUS: - Maps. If this app would use NAVTEQ, it would be a -killer-, and I wouldnt use anything else. Missing streets, streets in the middle of the lake, ghost streets, it looks like Teleatlas maps from 5 years ago. - Cacelling a route is a real pain going through several menu layers. - It as fuel prices for only the route it chooses, not the alternative routes, where you would be able to compare the fuel prices to determine the route to choose. - It sometimes doesnt choose the best routes. When you tap alternate routes, those are shorter in distance and time, so why didnt it choose that one in the beginning? - Favorites arent stored alphabetically. - Contact addresses doesnt alway work but does in Navigon. - Where are the speed limits? I have seen none so far, even if all options are on, so why advertize it? - The customizable "turn now" announement, which is crucial, stopped working, no matter what distance I choose. Did a hard reset, etc.. Nada - The big square box on the bottom info bar that leads you to the main menu is huge and takes too much space. It could be much smaller, in fact it could be removed and tapping a portion of the info bar could lead you to the same options. This would gain extremely valuable space for other more important info being displayed. - No "emergency" shortcut button to be found. This one is priceless and important if you ever need it. This is now a standard feature on other nav apps. - No info bar when no route is planned, so that means that if you are driving without a route, you wont even be able to see the compass or the actual speed. In summary, the biggest minus for me are the maps. It drops the rating by 1 star. It feels like you are sitting in a fast sexy sports car only to find out it has a 1.4 liter 4 cylinder engine. The other minuses drops another star. However, it has some features that -could- make it the best nav app in the app store. I will test more and update again. I will wait to see if they update all the map errors I found (which I found none in the NAVTEQ maps),and if they fix the quirks. Crossing my fingers on this one. - UPDATE 2 - I planned a route to go to the Calvin Klein store. It seemed OK, however instead of making me take the highway exit which is on the right, it was trying to make me exit on the left, which was the highway entrance of the opposite side! This app is not safe. How can you have confidence, trust and rely on a nav app that the maps have missing streets, wrong street names, no one way street info, streets that are on the map but dont really exist, and not even proper highway exit mapping. I have seen all of these in reviewing this software for the last 2 days in my area. I can only wonder what would happen on a long trip. I do not trust this software.

Cannot understand why Canadian maps are so outdated!! Some streets arent even named properly. Heads up to the software developers, PLEASE HAVE DEVELOPERS FOCUS ON INTEGRATING PROPER CANADIAN MAPS. I understand we can submit map fixes ourselves but when the GPS is telling you to take a left turn on a one way street that you CANT take a left turn on is a bit ridiculous and dangerous!! I understand this is probably an American software company focusing on American maps but you have alot of Canadian clients expecting the same attention to service. Especially having to pay extra for Canadian maps. Interface and voice prompt is great. Love everything about this software except what is most important to me. PROPERLY UPDATED CANADIAN MAPS!!! I will be a loyal customer if you pay more attention to your Canadian customers!!! If not, I will be looking elsewhere. UPDATE: August 1st, 2011. Switched to Navigon. 10X better than this!!!!

On my Copilot (V8) STANDARD edition the Canadian maps are quite accurate, but on Copilot (V9) USA PREMIUM edition with the Canadian maps added, I must say that the maps are outdated and at best four years old. This is a nonsense, how could that be. I found streets on the standard edition that are less than a year old and some others four and five years old that are not present on the Premium version. And there is NO speed limits on the map... Copilot Premium is a real plus and I like it, but without accurate maps how can-I trust it !. Its that bad that I must use my Standard edition of Copilot. Honestly, i cant give more than 2 stars to the Premium version.

UPDATE: Taken one star off. Inaccuracy of Canadian maps is appalling. Last weekend was directed onto an unpaved road in Niagara Falls and almost ended up in a ditch. Kudos to CoPilot for finding an unpaved road - I havent seen one in years. Also I submitted a number of map corrections including a number of left turn restrictions - none have made it into the map update. Providing an inaccurate map to drivers is unsafe. I will alert Apple. These guys dont appear to care but when someone does an illegal turn, gets into an accident and sues them they will! PREVIOUS COMMENT: Im unsure how to rate this app. I love their traffic service - it covers city streets, which is much better than any other app, at least in Canada. HOWEVER, I am appalled how inaccurate their Canadian map is. I get incorrect directions on MAJOR Toronto streets daily. Just yesterday I was instructed to turn left on Gerrard while driving south on Bayview. Yes, they intersect but Gerrard is on a bridge 100 m (300 ft) above Bayview! I get instructed multiple times a day to make illegal left turns again on major avenues! This is so unprofessional. What is really frustrating is that if CoPilot had accurate Canadian maps, it would be the best GPS fir iPhone here!

I bought this version with canadian maps in-app before the North America one got released. The interface is awesome (hence the 2 stars), but a gps app without reliable maps is useless. Yes you can submit map errors and they will correct it in the next update, but I dont feel like submitting 3-4 map errors on every single trip. Also, all the other gps navigation apps turned universal so I can enjoy them even more on my new iPad. Copilot chose to make a separate universal version instead of upgrading the existing ones. Thats not nice :( I will stick with TomTom & Sygic at least until Copilot fix their maps. -EDIT- Add to the crap list: 2x 1.4 GB app updates in a row, and the new update description seems the same than the previous update about 10 days ago. Wtf?!?

Great and awesome app. I love it and use it all the time. Recommend to all and thank you guys. Updated to latest version and is great. Love it.

Version 10 Update: Version 10 offers some nice features BUT the bluetooth issue I reported in the last version still exists. According to the website, "Currently, Windows phones and iOS devices do not offer the possibility of choosing between phone and multimedia audio when Bluetooth is enabled" The developers need to look at another app called Waze. This app has a toggle option to have navigation spoken through the speaker OR bluetooth. So if developers @ Waze can implement such an option, I dont see why the developers @ ALK cant do the same thing. So like before, Im dissappointed once again and have deleted CoPilot and will continue to use Waze. Update: Thought I’d give this app another try since my last review. Contact list now works. Active Traffic works for most of the GTA. The newest issue is when I have my iPhone plugged into my car via USB/Bluetooth. There should be an option to have the voices play over via bluetooth or thru the iPhone’s speakers. Unless I turn off bluetooth on my phone ( and loose the ability to make and receive calls ) ,I can no longer hear the directions. This has been discussed on the websites forum for over a year and still not resolved.

I love this navi app. Im using it mostly in NY but I think its fully functional and never let me down. 100% recomended.

Great navigation app, especially for offline use. I have both North America and Europe maps. Ready to switch. You can save your profile to the cloud, so if it dumps, you can get your settings back easily. There used to be issues with having to reinstall fairly often, but those seem to have been resolved. You can also download just the map parts you need, allowing you to effectively manage phone storage. Ive been using it for 6-7 years and its great!

I love that I can drag a route when planning a trip but I find that navigating in the app to be confusing! A large campground was not in the app.

Theyve tarted it all up to look spiffy but its like putting a Yugo engine in a Cadillac! Ive been sending them feedback on an absurd quirk of routing for over 6 years! The quirk is still there...taking you on a bizarre detour for no reason and costing you 4 mins on the trip. Ive sent GPS tracks and everything. The just dont want the bother of accuracy. I guess they hope people wont notice. Pretty irritating. Stick to Waze!!!

This new version is not as easy to set up as previous version. Also submitted a road closing & it is not in this new version. Road has been closed for 40 years with a bridge that no longer exists & people are directed to take this road & they cant get through.

One of the best features of Copilot is the Safety View, which gives you a large print turn direction, road sign icon, and text directions that uses the entire display. Compare to Google or Apple Maps, where the text directions are tiny. Better yet, Copilot allows you to tap the screen to make it say the directions again. Between the large text and the repeatable audio, its a great companion on the road. Once you get close to the turn (configurable distance) the map pops in to show you the layout. Combined with Zoom To Turn in 2D view, it makes for a great way to view things. Or it did. Safety View is still present, but now instead of turning it on by two taps (Menu>Directions), its locked away in a hidden drawer that doesnt show up UNTIL YOU HAVE A TRIP LOADED. And even then the only hint is a single pull-up arrow at the bottom of the screen, which is so thin as to be lost in the glare. Better yet, if you have the map configured to pop in as I mentioned, if you are trying to activate Safety view while holding still, you only have a split second to do it before the map slides the drawer back in. ALK, put Safety View back in the main menu! Theres plenty of room. Just add another button under 3-D. Most of all, DONT EMULATE GOOGLES INTERFACE. El Goog has better maps than you. You guys need to win on a better viewing experience, and until this update, you WERE. Stop hiding interface elements!