InRoute is a solid entry in the free GPS app realm, on par with the also-free Scout. It's nearly as good as our Editors' Choice, Google Maps, though it lacks transit navigation and traffic alerts. However, it offers some unique features, like weather alerts along your route and interactive charts showing elevation and curviness. It also helps you prepare for multi-segment trips by letting you adjust the departure and layover times so you can see what's in store for each leg. There's just one catch: Voice-guided navigation and severe weather alerts require an in-app purchase ($11.99), which means this app is not truly free. Still, InRoute is very resourceful for drivers; just keep Google Maps on call for non-car travel.
Interface and Points of Interest
When you fire up the app the first time, it shows you a tutorial that guides you through various features including how to save places to your favorites, how to set up a route and add waypoints, and how to use chart data. You can view the tutorial right away, or look at it later by tapping the Info button at the bottom of the map screen.
InRoute (for iPhone)
You can save places by searching for destinations, pulling from your contacts, dropping a pin, or importing them from other apps or files. Like Google Maps, you can search for points of interest (POIs) along your route and view the route as a list of all turns or on a map.
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To add a destination you can simply search by address or business name, which I like. It feels more natural than having to enter the city or zip code first, as you have to do with apps like CoPilot and Navigon. You can also search along your route, which is always helpful if you need bathrooms, beverages, food, or gas along the way.
One way that InRoute is different from other apps is that when you enter an address or business, you can add it on the map as a pin, or as the starting point, waypoint, or destination. This means you can easily create multi-segment routes or save destinations as favorites from one screen. While I like this feature, using it can get confusing, since you can set up multiple routes at once. I found myself frequently losing track of what I was doing.
Another interesting feature is that you can save and export your routes to other apps including Apple Maps, Google Maps, Navigon, TomTom, Waze, TomTom, and to standalone GPS devices.
Car Navigation
It took some hunting around to figure out how to start navigating. Eventually I found it by tapping the Share button (a small box with an up arrow), which includes options for Navigate, Delete Route, and Save Route, among others. Hopefully in a future update, InRoute will make the option to navigate more immediately visible.
InRoute (for iPhone)Once on my way, InRoute offered fast and accurate routes for all my driving trips, including to the Fairway supermarket in Harlem, a location that stymied Apple Maps and TomTom due to its proximity to several roads, highways, and overpasses. I like that you can easily switch between driving and walking modes when creating a route, too, as you can with Google Maps. Other apps like CoPilot make you dig into route settings to do so, which is inconvenient.
When I parked in a local park, the app thought I was a few blocks away on a street I was overlooking, which is the one of the few inaccuracies I encountered. (This particlar park seems to be a tricky spot for any GPS to get an accurate location.) On other routes, I intentionally made wrong turns, and InRoute recalculated quickly, though sometimes it wasn't specific enough. For example, it once said, "Please return to the route," which wasn't exactly helpful. I also noticed that sometimes the app couldn't keeping up, telling me to head toward Broadway long after I had crossed it. In another case, InRoute got ahead of me, saying I was at my destination, when I hadn't yet made the final turn. In general, though, I had no trouble getting to where I wanted to go.
Pedestrian Navigation and Weather Alerts
I gave walking navigation a couple of tests too. When I pulled up directions to get to a park in Fort Lee, InRoute sent me downtown to take a ferry, rather than telling me to walk across the George Washington Bridge, which has a biking and pedestrian lane. This tripped up several apps including Apple Maps, CoPilot, and MapQuest. But it did give me accurate (and safe) directions to a Harlem restaurant, unlike CoPilot, which sent me down a street with no sidewalk or crosswalk.
As mentioned earlier, InRoute also offers weather alerts, which is a great resource for road trips. You can check temperature, humidity, precipitation, and wind speed along your route, as well as elevation and curviness. This way you don't have to toggle between your GPS app and a weather app to see what's in store for you on the road ahead. I can see this feature coming in handy on long trips, and it really helps to set the app apart from the rest of the pack.
Conclusions
InRoute is a solid GPS app, with some genuinely unique features. However, while the initial download is free, you have to pay to get turn-by-turn navigation and other features. If you want the best car, pedestrian, and public transit directions you can get without paying a dime, Google Maps is your best bet. If you're looking to plan a long trip and you want to incorporate weather data along the way, InRoute is a useful supplement.
The InRoute GPS app has a lot going for it, but it can't operate properly without premium upgrades, and its interface isn't easy to navigate.
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