10 iPhone Navigation Apps for Your Next Driving Adventure

by Nicholas Kolakowski

This app provides navigation from Point A to B with 2D and 3D driving views, route calculations, spoken instructions, and estimated travel times. Those using an iPhone or iPod Touch will need a TomTom car kit with GPS receiver; the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3G S, which feature GPS, do not need the kit in order to function properly. Also features editions for other countries.

Also available in editions for other countries (including Australia and the U.K.), this app marries U.S. and Canada street maps with your iPhones GPS to guide users. Features include 2D and 3D driving views, a detour button for alternate routes, text-to-speech for directions, and a route optimizer for multistop trips.

Utilizes the GPS chipset of your iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS to guide users; includes address book integration and iPod integration, so you can listen to music or audio books while using the app.

Besides automatically saving your parking location and including a pedestrian mode for navigating on-foot and in-app music control, this app includes one-touch bookmarking of locations, 3D landmarks and realistic renderings of highway signs.

High-resolution satellite imagery, formatted for your iPhone or iPod Touch. Tilt your device to more fully view mountainous terrain, and view geo-located Wikipedia articles.

Allows users to search for local points of interest, narrow searches by categories such as food, read reviews and look up phone numbers.

The Flashlight app glows with really bright white light (some other special effects, like Strobe Light, are also included). Why? Well, sometimes you really need to navigate through some dark areas.

Navigation features include lane assistant, which tells you which lane to be in, and crowd-sourced info on area speed cameras. Users can call up local points of interest, including restaurants and parking areas.

Clean interface and 3D map view, speed and lane assistants, automatic day/night adjustment, enhanced pedestrian navigation, single-click Take Me Home function, and realistic display of interchanges and exits are just some of this apps features.

Unlike many of these other apps, this one relies on a subscription service after the first 30-day trial period (it costs $3.99 per month, $9.99 for 90 days or $29.99 per year). This app includes turn-by-turn navigation, the ability to search through more than 16 million points of interest, traffic-based routing, routing to existing iPhone Address Book Contacts, and the ability to resume navigation after phone calls.