Hello Community,

I just wanted to ask what additional features you would like to see in AndNav! ?

What is already upcoming: POI-Search, Contacts-Support, Text-2-Speech

So what would you love to see in a Navigation App What did you ever miss

Best Regards,
plusminus

Hi plusminus,

possibly a nice feature would be:
- let the Navi run in the background until you reach a specific location

e.g.: You know how to drive for the first part of the distance, so let the Navi run in the background and start playing some MP3s. After a specific city or Street you don't know how to drive. Now mute the music-player and start/continue the navigation.

Greetings!
clumsy

DEFINITELY a detour option, including "avoid next 1/2 mile, 1 mile, 2 miles, 3 miles, 5 miles, 10 miles" or "avoid next turn"

You're driving and you see a sign, "construction next 5 miles, expect delays"

fillthemup wrote:DEFINITELY a detour option, including "avoid next 1/2 mile, 1 mile, 2 miles, 3 miles, 5 miles, 10 miles" or "avoid next turn"

You're driving and you see a sign, "construction next 5 miles, expect delays"

Yes, that would be nice, but using the Google DrivingDirections API i have no access to the algorithm or the street data itself, what unfortunately makes such a feature impossible.

has major privacy issues, but:

a feature to check average driving speed on different streets/daytimes so nav can be further improved.

again: major privacy issues

alex2308 wrote:has major privacy issues, but:

a feature to check average driving speed on different streets/daytimes so nav can be further improved.

again: major privacy issues

Sounds good, but data could only be used to adjust the time needed and not for avoiding specific streets, for the same reason as above.
Also many users would be needed to provide statistically correct results.
--> Added to the Nice-To-Have-List

I was just thinking about this when driving home...

Something that I would really like is if it's possible to submit traffic data to your mothership so we can all share our traffic conditions...wait for it...at the street level. This way, we can figure out new routes to take or back streets that should have no traffic. This can include historical data so we know at what times these side streets are bad. There should be an option to poll our traffic every x minutes so it doesn't kill the battery or always-on if it's being charged.

When we have this data or the google map traffic data, it can look far enough ahead and give us the option to route a fastest route using traffic data.

If we are already in traffic, we could tell it to re-route for x miles on side streets.

I understand some of these things may not be possible because of not having an api for the directions, but would it be infeasible to do a work-around like adding new driving points? eg: Make a new point somewhere off the freeway, make it go in a straight line for x miles, then remap it. The directions API should re-calculate automatically using these new points.

Another option and feature (which might be built-in google maps) is to let us manually make new routes like how google maps lets us drag the routing line.

Allow users to submit places where they got driving tickets so we can start collecting a database of speed traps or if there are already websites with this data.

Show next two turns. It's annoying when I exit right on the freeway but was supposed to be in the left lane. If it showed i was supposed to turn right and also showed i am turning left right away, life would be good.

Also color code background of next turns. If the next turn is far, it can be green, coming up is yellow, you should be in the proper lane and ready to turn is red. This would make it easier to make a quick glance at the GPS to understand your readiness and so you don't have to look at the GPS too often.

Maybe even a flash of the screen of the proper color so you know you're getting closer.

Show selected POI categories on the map.

Show favorites on the map.

It would also be great if it can say only the specific freeway junction i am supposed to get on. My nuvi and other GPS' are confusing when it says to keep right to 5N, 101N, 110N then at the last minute says to keep left and stay on 101N. Just tell me to get on 101N. I can still read signs.

Sort POI/Favorites/Contacts alphabetically, by distance, or frequency.

Finger gesture of favorites/contacts. I'm guilty of routing when driving on occassion. It would be very convenient if we could make our own custom finger gesture to quickly route to somewhere. Eg: we would go to the main menu > gestures > see a screen with rows and columns of circles (like the android screen lock) > draw an M > it will take you to the map and navigate you to the Mall (if you set an M-looking gesture to the mall favorite).

Allow us to enter multiple waypoints and it will calculate the best route so we're not driving back and fourth.

Tell us to turn at the earliest possible time. Eg: If we are to turn on 1st Street, it will tell us as soon as we pass 2nd Street. The only time it shouldn't use the earliest possible time is if the streets are close by; if you would end up passing the street at your current speed by the time it would tell you -- the nuvi has done this many times before!

To add to clumsy's suggestion: If a song/movie is playing, pause it, switch to navigation and tell us the new directions, go back to the song/movie continue playing. Same thing for any app if we're not in AndNav (just no need to pause). There should also be an option to automatically switch screens when the turn is coming up; eg: show in next turn, 500ft, 1mi, 2mi, 3mi, ..., off

Upload images of our own car so we see it "driving" in AndNav

This is my list for now...

Great website! I'm still a newbie but have lots of ideas for apps. Hopefully I can contribute someday too.

Hello ZeroFill,

big thanks for you long reply.

Anyway before implementing any of your ideas, I have solve another problem:
The GoogleMaps API Terms of Service do not allow Turn-By-Turn Navigation Apps like AndNav. Therefore I'll have to contact NavTeq for a possible licensing

Best Regards,
plusminus

Warn when approaching a stationary speed camera . I think there are a couple of websites that should have databases containing the gps infos of the speed cameras .

@+-: Aww, that's too bad. Do you have any idea if that's an expensive venture? I feel like there's a big potential to create a very appealing navigation system made by/for the community.

@velocity: +1 for your idea. I think that would be a great addition to the list of features.

ZeroFill

Up to now I only received a mail that said they work redirecting it to their Special Department.

One thing I am thinking about is making it OpenSource, which is not forbidden (Freedom of Speech) just like it is not forbidden to write a 'DVD-Security-Cracker' but to use it for cracking DVDs...
But that would make me the ass ... (moral issues and stuff)... :'(

ZeroFill wrote:I was just thinking about this when driving home...

Something that I would really like is if it's possible to submit traffic data to your mothership so we can all share our traffic conditions...wait for it...at the street level. This way, we can figure out new routes to take or back streets that should have no traffic. This can include historical data so we know at what times these side streets are bad. There should be an option to poll our traffic every x minutes so it doesn't kill the battery or always-on if it's being charged.

When we have this data or the google map traffic data, it can look far enough ahead and give us the option to route a fastest route using traffic data.

If we are already in traffic, we could tell it to re-route for x miles on side streets.

You might be interested to have a look at Jamdroid - www.jamdroid.org - which I developped some time ago for ADC.
No downloadable version is available yet (I had a lot of other stuff to do after ADC 1, and it went low-priority), since this is still in an 'alpha' stage, but a detailled description and videos are there.

Thinking of it, I would be happy if someone is interested in this concept, and would like to help... The goal being to make it a service usable by any GPS navigation software (eg. AndNav).

Etienne

Etienne wrote:

ZeroFill wrote:I was just thinking about this when driving home...

Something that I would really like is if it's possible to submit traffic data to your mothership so we can all share our traffic conditions...wait for it...at the street level. This way, we can figure out new routes to take or back streets that should have no traffic. This can include historical data so we know at what times these side streets are bad. There should be an option to poll our traffic every x minutes so it doesn't kill the battery or always-on if it's being charged.

When we have this data or the google map traffic data, it can look far enough ahead and give us the option to route a fastest route using traffic data.

If we are already in traffic, we could tell it to re-route for x miles on side streets.

You might be interested to have a look at Jamdroid - www.jamdroid.org - which I developped some time ago for ADC.
No downloadable version is available yet (I had a lot of other stuff to do after ADC 1, and it went low-priority), since this is still in an 'alpha' stage, but a detailled description and videos are there.

Thinking of it, I would be happy if someone is interested in this concept, and would like to help... The goal being to make it a service usable by any GPS navigation software (eg. AndNav).

Etienne

Hello Etienne,

before AndNav can make further steps, I'll need to manage the licensing-issues with at least Google and NAVTEQ.

After that it might be possible.

Best Regards,
plusminus

Let's see.....I have numerous suggestions floating around in my head.

For one, I'd love to see a screen to display the GPS satellite tracks and positions in an XPlanet style format....something that shows an icon for the bird, and a trail showing it's path for the past 15 minutes or so. Garmin units usually provide a screen of this nature that show the current position and signal strength for each satellite, but no real trend info.

There should absolutely be a way to plan a route between two locations, even if you are nowhere near either one of them....call it an "offline" mode or something. But at least that usually provides a way to get an idea of travel times and look at possible alternative routes.

I'd love to see integration with the address book on the phone. Saved waypoints should be stored in the address book. Likewise your contacts should have an option to store location data. Thus when you look up a contact, there should be a simple option to "route to" directly from the address book. Garmin did this on their iQue product line and it was excellent!

Another feature would be a way to download the current weather radar data for your current location and overlay that on the route display in a semi-transparent manner so as not to obscure the route. That way you'll be able to see if there is poor weather conditions ahead or moving into the area along the way. This shouldn't be that difficult to implement and is something that only expensive high-end GPS units with an XM Weather subscription have access to. The G1 obviously has an advantage since it has direct net access most places.

Another similar feature would be to overlay actual visible cloud cover, again with a variable transparency so as not to obscure the route and guidance data.

If possible, it would be really cool to have a semi-isometric view (3D view) of the route and use the 3D buildings and objects that people have built up for Google Earth. This would be especially useful in a city setting.

I know you are working with NAVTEQ and I hope that works out. I've been nothing but pleased with their cartography. You might also want to try TeleAtlas....they are the other major source of commercial cartography that the big GPS OEMs use. I think I see that you may also be pursuing Open Street Maps, which is outstanding. The ability to load our own maps, either topo, or marine, or other specialty maps would be wonderful!!!!

I'm sure I'll think of numerous others...I've been using my venerable old Garmin iQue 3600 for years and years and only the iPhone and G1 have met all my requirements to actually replace it.

I think I'm actually more excited about AndNav than I am about receiving my G1!

Thanks for the ideas

Actually you might be disappointed of the current version of AndNav, because I had to cripple it down to meet the GoogleMaps ToS

But I'm working hard on replacing the specific parts with free mapdata

Best Regards,
plusminus