I have looked through this thread to identify multiple instances of people claiming Navigation doesn’t function in offline mode and can only find one that even gets close. That instance simply points out that the app doesn’t do so to the extent that dedicated sat nav devices do; in that MRA hasn’t provided the facility to download a route or routes onto the host device. Thus customers (note that word - it might seem old fashioned, but I think it’s important nonetheless!) hoping to use a combination of Routeplanner and Navigation are reliant upon an internet connection to a far greater extent than users of, for example, Garmin BaseCamp and a compatible Garmin device such as one of their Zūmo range. Now, given that MRA’s marketing materials present their products as offering a viable replacement for such route planning and sat nav systems and here is an instance of this simply not being the case, it seems to me that, prima facie, a legal action could reasonably be instigated on the strength of that marketing being misleading.
To date, customers have, patiently and hopefully in the main I think, attempted to encourage MRA to improve the Navigation app via the support system and this forum, both in this regard and in relation to a plethora of endlessly varying performance related issues. Neither avenue has yielded any significant improvements. It would seem that patience is now being strained and hope lost. That’s a great shame. Particularly as incorporating the facility to install routes onto host devices should be relatively straightforward, given that navigable map layers can already be installed for offline use, and that this would go a very long way to providing functionality much closer to that of dedicated sat navs.
The matter of ongoing performance issues would likely remain, of course. And in this regard the support for Navigation seems to have all but disappeared. I tried to feed back issues for some time, but it eventually became quite clear that this is futile. Why? You tell me! Maybe the developers have simply adopted a CBA* approach? Or perhaps funds are tight and development has been suspended? After all, there has been a spate of fundraising attempts of late - several supposedly ‘last chance’ ‘opportunities’ to purchase ‘lifetime’ subscriptions and the bizarre ‘Routexperts on a stick’ thing…
Customers have no way of knowing, given the ever growing lack of transparency and published Navigation app development pathways, etc, from MRA. All we have had is completely unfulfilled promises of imminent improvements, followed by a revelation that, despite the current poor state of Navigation, MRA are considering a parallel app called ‘Next’! Wow!!! Or is that just some form of obfuscation?
The conspicuous absence of input from MRA executives as this thread (and others) develops does nothing to help. Instead, we have the spectacle of a few acolytes seeking to repudiate the use based observations of customers. My experience of the Navigation app is that it is ill conceived and developed, bug ridden (to the point of being potentially dangerous), lacks any meaningful support coverage, is so unreliable as to be worthless to me (hence my deleting it) and is simply not as described in MRA’s marketing. And that is not because I ‘don’t know how to use it’, it’s because, in my experience, it is ill conceived and developed, bug ridden (to the point of being potentially dangerous), lacks any meaningful support coverage, is so unreliable as to be worthless and is simply not as described in MRA’s marketing.
But, then, what does that matter? I’m only a C-U-S-T-O-M-E-R…
As for Apple CarPlay… Even as a user of Apple mobile devices (sorry, Android phones weren’t an option in early 2008), the notion that it (or any similar technology from any other manufacturer) might dictate my choices on the basis of its limitations and inadequacies has me say bollocks to that as driving force (sorry, bad pun).
*Can’t Be Arsed
