Getting Around with Navigon MyRegion

I’m not a person who actually needs or relies on a GPS system for travel.  Not to be a stereotypical guy, but I know my way around my state (Maryland if you happen to wonder).  However, sometimes, I need directions in the city or when heading to a neighbor state, say to visit my father or a vacation.  With the recent drop in price of Navigon’s award winning navigation app, I decided it was high time to purchase my first GPS app.

First, I want you to know that at the time of this writing, Navigon’s MyRegion apps are on sale for $14.99, typically $29.99.  As you will see, I will highly recommend you purchase this as soon as possible because it is a steal at this price!  [Update: the sale has ended]

Graphically, MyRegion is very slick but without the superfluous UI elements that can be found in other apps.  The general feel of the app is minimalistic and dark, with grey buttons and black backgrounds fitting for the iPhones aesthetics.  This also helps readability during the day and night, as opposed to having a white background with colorful buttons which can be distracting while driving.

Unlike other apps, most notably @TomTom, the map view in MyRegion is not customizable and uses a standard color system.  While I suppose that having the choice of map color themes based on country is neat, I don’t see it as beneficial.  A map is a map. Everyone should be able to read a map regardless of it’s color theme, right?  I’m not from Germany, but I should have enough skill to navigate a map without special coloring.

Overall animation when navigating is pretty smooth and on par with other navigation apps, even dedicated units.  I found that the map view was pretty crisp and clean with little clutter to distract me while I was driving.  The verbal instructions were clear and at a decent pace.  In contrast to other apps that stop the music when a verbal instruction is given, MyRegion is considerate enough to just lower the volume and speak over the playing music.  I can’t tell you how much better this made the whole experience for me.

MyRegion has beautiful iPod integration!  When you tap the iPod icon found in the lower righthand corner, the view flips up much like Google Maps and reveals the iPod music controls.  From here you can enable shuffle, repeat, advance the track, and every other iPod control minus the genius icon.  All of this is decorated extremely well with album artwork – which looks so great in landscape mode!  Sure, some albums may crop better than others, but it works out on most albums.

MyRegion allows you to save favorite addresses and choose the services you would like to see in search results and on the map.  I found this to be super granular but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense.  Sometimes it’s nice to find an ATM from your bank so you can avoid those expensive fees for withdrawing from non-member ATM’s.  Results were very accurate for me, everything from restaurants to rest stops.  Additionally, live traffic support is available for $19.99 as an in-app purchase.  Though I was not able to locate where to purchase it within the app, you can find this easily enough in the app store.  I did not test out this feature, however, I do see this as a future purchase for me.

I was disappointed to find only two voices to choose from with no option to expand or add cool ones.  Not that this was a make or break feature, but it is nice to be able to customize your experience wouldn’t you say?

While I won’t find myself using MyRegion everyday, there is no doubt that it will remain on my iPhone as the go-to tool for those times that I’m lost.  Don’t let it’s clean and simple look fool you, the accuracy and rich feature set is worth every penny.