Sat Nav2 app by Skrobbler starts off by not working, then sends me the wrong way when it does
I’m not a great fan of apps because, like a lot of things online, they’re great at taking your money but often rubbish at customer support or explanation.
I bought Skrobbler’s Sat nav2 app and tried it out at home. Even on my ropey 3G connection at home, the map / route part of the app seemed quite able to locate me and plot a route from A to B without a problem. But hitting the ‘Navigation’ button (to use the app as a talking SatNav rather than as a GoogeMaps equivalent) just didn’t seem to want to work. The app repeatedly assumed that my location was the center of Berlin.
Now I’ve nothing agains Berlin but not very helpful if my SatNav can’t tell my start point. This plus the somewhat counter0-intuitive user interface had me swearing at Skrobbler a lot this morning.
A quick search online shows I wasn’t alone in this. A number of 1* reviews on the iTunes app store say the same. As do posts in the Skrobbler Support Forum.
Later, I went into town and tried the app out from there. To my surprise, it seemed to work. Except that it tried to direct me the wrong way to get home. Not completely wrong but petrol-wastingly-unnecessarily wrong.
That doesn’t inspire me to spend any more money on ‘offline’ map packs. I learned one thing today about buying apps and it’s this: when you’re in the iTunes app store, make sure you filter the reviews by ‘Most Critical’ first and read them all. I wish I had. I know it’s only a couple of quid but it’s still money.
Take the longest and wrong route almost everytime
Don’t but this application
Mmmm okay. It has worked for me, so it’s not that bad.