Of course, MapQuest has been around on the net for sometime. Even before they became part of AOL. I have even come to prefer them for most directions as they allow an easy way to move routes around like a rubber band. (Or an elastic for you Bostonians.)
Now there is an App version for iOS devices. I have used it several times now to get me to places where I had only a basic idea how to get there. For example, this morning, I used it to get me to an office in Grand Prairie where I have never been.
From start to finish it was 18.6 miles and had an estimated travel time of 24 minutes. However, on the way we discovered that we needed to stop at our home and pickup some forgotten paper work. It recalculated the directions on the fly and updated them so that we continually knew how to get to the destination.
MapQuest acts like a dedicated GPS and vocally gives you turn by turn directions while even warning you that a turn is coming up.
The only problem we had was it announced I had arrived at my destination about a block before we actually had. But it was close enough we could figure it out.
The Default Settings can be changed so that route can be calculated by either shortest time or shortest distance. Another one can avoid highways, toll roads or seasonally closed roads. One of the settings can even change the icon representing you. You can also turn off the voice directions and the reroute capabilities. One option that I wasn’t expecting was the rotation of maps so that the map is always positioned so that moving forward is always toward the top of the screen.
Price: Free
