Remember MapQuest? You probably used it on your desktop at one point in time to print out directions for a road trip, before Google Maps came along and made printed maps a thing of the past. MapQuest is still kicking though, competing with Google Maps and others in the free GPS app realm. It offers both driving and walking directions, though not public transit. While car navigation worked well, MapQuest's walking directions had some quirks, as did its search function. That makes it hard to recommend over our Editors' Choice, Google Maps.
Interface and Points of Interest
When you open MapQuest, you're greeted with two straightforward options: Find Places and Get Directions. Tap Find Places and you can search by name or by category, which includes the usual restaurants, hotels, coffee shops, and other points of interest. Choose a category and you can view the results either on a map or as a list as you can with Google Maps. You can also save your home and work address, as well as favorite destinations, so you don't have to type them in over and over again.
If you tap Get Directions, you can start at your current location, choose to and from addresses, or reverse course. You can also enter multiple stops, with no obvious limit, which is something that Google Maps doesn't offer. Next you can choose whether you want walking or driving directions and choose to avoid tolls and/or highways. While navigating, the screen shows a map of the route, and the distance to your next turn, which is in a large font up top. You can tap to view a complete list of directions, which I always find helping for planning ahead.
Once you've chosen your destination, MapQuest tells you the amount of driving time and traffic condition (light traffic, for example). Along the route, you can choose to get alerts on traffic slowdowns, incidents, webcams, or all. You can add layers to the map, including traffic alerts and points of interest, such as gas stations and restaurants. At the bottom of the screen, you can tap to adjust voice guidance volume (soft, medium, loud, or off).
Similar Products
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MapQuest found most of the retail locations and points of interest I requested, including the New York Botanical Garden in The Bronx and the St. George Theatre on Staten Island; for the latter it also offered directions by ferry from the South Street Seaport. It didn't have Fairway Market Harlem in its database though, which was surprising since it's not a new store.
Car and Walking Navigation
For my first trip using MapQuest, I navigated home from a destination a few miles away. It took me on what felt like a circuitous route to the highway, and then told me to exit left on a ramp that was marked "authorized vehicles only." At that point, I had already passed the appropriate exit to get home, and MapQuest quickly redirected me. However, instead of taking me to the next exit, where I know I could have gotten home pretty quickly, it sent me to another exit, where I had to turn around and return to the highway going in the opposite direction. That was inconvenient. That said, the app's voice prompts are timely and often offer the next two turns so you know what you're in for.
Next, I navigated to Fairway Market in Harlem, which can be tricky to get to—Apple Maps completely failed here. When I searched for Fairway, instead of pulling up nearby relevant results, the first result I got was for Fairway, Kansas, which I found odd. After trying several permutations, I couldn't find the Fairway location that I wanted, but since I had the address from testing other apps, I was able to put MapQuest to the test. It did a better than Apple Maps here, actually getting me to the store, though its route was not as direct as Google Maps or Waze.
MapQuest also offers walking directions, though I experienced some oddities. First, when I navigated to a location just under two miles away, a prompt appeared asking if I'd rather drive since it's a long walk (about 40 minutes—for a New Yorker, that's really not so bad.) Once I dismissed that alert, it gave me an accurate route.
Next, since I was near the Manhattan side of the George Washington Bridge, I asked for directions to Fort Lee Historic Park, which is right on the other side of the Hudson. Again, I received an alert saying it was a long walk. In this case, it's because MapQuest isn't aware that the GWB has a pedestrian lane, so it had calculated the walk at over five hours, sending me downtown to take a ferry across the river, which is the same mistake that Apple Maps made. Google Maps got this right.
Falls Short of Google Maps
MapQuest has come a long way since its desktop-only days. The app is easy to use, incorporates traffic conditions, and offers generally accurate driving directions. But at times it doesn't find the most direct route, and its walking directions fall short. Add to that a lack of public transit directions, and it just can't compete with Google Maps, our Editors' Choice.
MapQuest does a nice job with car navigation, but missteps with walking directions and a lack of public transit guidance.
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