[pahwa]

I have finally given up on Sygic after I wasted an hour last night. The device showed my destination just 50 m away and when I was about to celebrate reaching my destination, it started asking me to keep continuing straight for another 5 kms. Stopped and asked around. My destination was actually somewhere else, some 20 mins of a ride away. This was the state of navigation intelligence for a central destination like the Jayamahal Palace, Bangalore.

Goodbye Sygic! Life is better without you

[DerAlte]

Originally Posted by pahwa

I have finally given up on Sygic ... This was the state of navigation intelligence for a central destination like the Jayamahal Palace, Bangalore. ...

Strange. What did you search for or specify as destination?

[pahwa]

Originally Posted by DerAlte

Strange. What did you search for or specify as destination?

Yes, found it very strange for a landmark place like Jayamahal Palace. I searched for Jayamahal Palace and it showed me as a top option among matching names.

I was stranded almost nowhere and kept asking people for directions who told me I am quite far from the Jayamahal.

[McLaren Roxx]

Originally Posted by pahwa

I tried Sygic for navigating home from Majestic bus stand in Bangalore. Happy that it brought me home. It took me to drive through narrowest of streets of Bangalore instead of the simple road. Therefore, for the moment, I am not trusting this app for important journeys.

Originally Posted by HillMan

No navigation is fool proof for India. We should only use them as a reference.

That reminds me; you must try google navigation from Gandhi bazaar to Vijay Nagar. Dont try this on Duster

Originally Posted by pahwa

Yes, found it very strange for a landmark place like Jayamahal Palace. I searched for Jayamahal Palace and it showed me as a top option among matching names.

I was stranded almost nowhere and kept asking people for directions who told me I am quite far from the Jayamahal.

I have been using Sygic extensively ever since it went free, and I am pretty happy with it. Cosmetic differences/advantages aside, what I was more concerned about was that the app should give trustworthy directions.
I have had a few scary experiences with GMaps wherein it has directed me onto restricted roads (army), dead ends & most recently, directed me into an off-roading experience! & all this in Mumbai/Nashik/Thane. It scares me to even think what directions it would dish out in towns & villages.
Sygic on the other hand, was perfect in its directions.

About the off-roading misdirection, try navigating from Kharghar, Navi Mumbai to Manvel Pada, Virar. GMaps casually directs you to a path (marked on the map as 'from this point', 'to this point') that is used by trucks & earth mining vehicles (even a Duster would be scared silly to venture out on that path), whereas Sygic neatly asks you to take the civilized route.

My vote goes to Sygic.

[ampere]

Guys please take all navigation aids with a pinch of salt. All tools are very good servants. But they can turn out to be very bad masters.

Its always good to do your home work online/off-line then and use GPS aids to direct you the point which you ask it to lead.

[raj_5004]

I have been using Sygic for quite some time now. In the UK, it worked flawlessly.

Here in India, I feel Google maps has a better database. It is easier to search for an address in Google, but Sygic is offline and is better with routes, lanes and directions. So, before venturing out on the road, I search for the address in Sygic and always cross check for the destination on Google on my laptop preferably.

Many a times, if I cannot find the address in Sygic, I use Google maps as a tool to pin point the location in Sygic so that I am not lost. This method works well.

[DerAlte]

Originally Posted by raj_5004

... Here in India, I feel Google maps has a better database. It is easier to search for an address in Google, ...

Google has a better PoI database from their Google business data collection over the years. Since it was individual businesses who added their data, there are errors which are not easy to spot! The biggest suspect usually is the geo-location of the business: whoever added it on behalf of the business, didn't zoom to level 16 or 18 to put the location flag. If the flag is placed at zoom level 15 or less, it usually appears in the wrong place, and by a wide margin. But then I am not always searching for a business which can be easily located by it's general commercial location: City Market, Jayanagar 4th Block complex, Commercial Street, even Gopalan Mall RR Nagar Arch!

Google is pathetic in terms of address outside the PoI realm. For that matter, ALL the navigation brands suffer from the same malady stemming from Navteq. This is where the mapping guys - MMI inclusive - haven't realized that in India, road names are not unique but associated with a specific area. Check Google for 11th Main Vijayanagar, and it will happily show you all other 11th Mains from around Bangalore - and not 11th Main Vijayanagar. If you happen to be lazy while selecting the address, it will happily take you to the wrong place. You need to zoom into the destination area, locate the point *yourself*, and then tell Google to route you to that geo-coordinate!

On top of that, road names in Bangalore, for example, may not represent contiguous straight roads! So 11th Main Vijayanagar would have started from Pipeline Road, and gone east (horizontal line in a conventional N-up map) BUT in its course would have been interrupted half a dozen times by parks, rows of houses and ... medians on main roads! Finally, 11th Main becomes progressively W to E:
- 11th Main, Hosahalli, Vijayanagar
- 11th Main, Chord Road, Vijayanagar
- 11th Main, MC Layout, Vijayanagar (aka the real 11th Main Vijayanagar)
- 11th Main, Binny Layout, Vijayanagar

Only Japan is more confusing than India in addresses (building numbers or plot numbers are not contiguous on a street; one has to search in the *block*). But then, Japanese being the ultra-accurate people they are, have had paper maps (believe you me, it needs a magnifying glass) since time immemorial with ALL the data on it. Of course, one has to figure out whether to go out of the East exit or the West resp. North or the South in a train station. Pick the wrong one, and you have had it. You will land up in a completely wrong area altogether!

God help us. In India, data accuracy came (and quietly vanished into oblivion) with Eicher Good Earth maps which had data from the last GIS thrust from late-80's / early'90s! After that, it is only ignorant computer operators doing their job - which is unrelated with data accuracy.

[Divya Sharan]

I have used Sygic for some 15 days now and here are my pointers on it.
1. Directions are right 99% of the time. But one MUST input the exact address in full for correct results.
2. It does get confused at times. e.g - It got confused in J P Nagar 6th phase and made me go around in circles.
3. It makes one take the bylanes (between shops) more often than open roads. E.g - Mathikere to New BEL road.

All in all, a good free app.

[pcpranav]

i did speak earlier on this thread : offroad tracking.
Last week, installed the app on wife's android.
In the GUI, I found an option enabled which says something like "if offroad, then will mark and help to trace back". seated in home, I kept waving the phone and in the main console it said "Offroad" - as if it detected the 'bumps' !

anybody has experience on offroad usage.

[abishek2222]

Originally Posted by pcpranav

anybody has experience on offroad usage.

No experience , I need to turn that off. A strong bump and it switches to off road and the map goes from 3d to 2d. Where exactly is that option to turn if off.

[pcpranav]

Originally Posted by abishek2222

No experience , I need to turn that off. A strong bump and it switches to off road and the map goes from 3d to 2d. Where exactly is that option to turn if off.

as mentioned on pg-2, you can find the user guide : http://storage.sygic.com/support/use...bile_v3_EN.pdf
search for "offroad" keyword and accordingly go to mobile

[iVento]

Originally Posted by pahwa

Goodbye Sygic! Life is better without you

pahwa, I have been using Sygic for the last 1.5 years. I am a paid user.

I found it very useful in "most" cases but there were times of frustrations as well.

I think they get the map updates very late-atleast 6 months after MMI updates their maps. What poor Sygic does not know that is in India, we change 1 / 2 way rules very often and a strong monsoon can cause a complete detour of National Highway traffic.

Once it directed me to Hesarghatta through a hell kind of a road. On another occasion, when I was traveling through NH-47, after Salem, suddenly it started displaying that there is no road exists

[AutoAficionado]

It has been more than a week since I had installed Sygic India (Maps of 4 states) on my android and am still trying to figure out how to key in the Start point. The GPS takes my current location as Bangalore and I get option of 'Navigate to' to enter the destination. I tried it for few routes within Karnataka and it worked well. But how does the user select a starting point apart from Bangalore. Does Sygic provide an option of entering a starting point ?

For Eg: User wants to know the distance from Chennai to Hyderabad with user seated in Bangalore, does Sygic give you the option of selecting the starting point as 'Chennai'?

I have fiddled with the apps and was unsuccessful in finding it.

Any help/pointers to my query would be appreciated.

Cheers!!!!

[prateekpsingh]

Has anyone upgraded to Sygic 13.1.5 on IOS? After the upgrade, my sygic has stopped working (i've been using the app for over 3 years now). It gets stuck at 'My Sygic -> Manage Maps'. i've installed and reinstalled it 3 times with no luck.

Has the new update worked for anyone on IOS?

[iVento]

Sygic Press Release

"We are very happy to introduce you our new HUD feature in version 13.3 for Android and iOS for North America package. Other packages soon.

HEAD-Up Display: Navigation info is at night projected directly into your line of sight - the windshield. Works when it’s dark without any additional accessories or devices"

Want a futuristic navigation HUD on your windshield? Check out Sygic’s GPS app

Sure, most smartphones offer free GPS navigation these days. But unless you have a smartphone mount on your dashboard, looking down at your phone for navigation can be awkward — and potentially dangerous — while driving.

Popular GPS navigation app Sygic has a solution: Just bring the navigation data to your windshield. Sygic is today launching a heads-up display (HUD) interface on its iPhone and Android apps — no extra gadgets required.

You just need to place your smartphone under your windshield and Sygic’s high-contrast HUD interface will be reflected on it, making it appear as if your car has a futuristic smart windshield. The interface highlights the most important navigation information, like the distance to your next turn, and it works in conjunction with the app’s voice navigation.

Garmin recently released a $150 gadget to enable a similar HUD feature on its $50 mobile app. Sygic’s HUD, in comparison, costs just $5 (plus more for other navigation features).

With 33 million users and $18 million in revenue this year, Sygic is one of the most popular navigation apps in the world. But while it has 3 million users in the U.S., it isn’t as well known in this country as other GPS solutions from Garmin, TomTom, or the free offerings from Google and Apple.

Unlike most GPS apps, Sygic downloads its maps to your phone so you can use its navigation features even without a cellular connection (in those cases, it just relies on your phone’s GPS). The company also differs from many of its competitors by taking a freemium approach: Basic navigation is free, but you have to shell out $29 for voice guidance and other premium features.

“We have a different strategy [from competitors], our business model is very transparent,” said Michal Stencl, Sygic’s founder and CEO, in an interview with VentureBeat. “We don’t want to collect info about the users, that’s why we ask for micropayments.”

Stencl tells me the HUD feature was developed as part of one of the company’s “Innovation Days” just a few weeks ago. That fast turnaround is telling: Sygic has 115 employees, but it’s still far more nimble than navigation giants.

The Bratislava, Slovakia-based company has been around since 2004 and is entirely bootstrapped by Stencl.

Source: VentureBeat