Turn By Turn

You know how they say “What you don’t know can’t hurt you”? Well, it too can be said that what you don’t know can’t help you, either. Such is the case with the tons of helpful features on Networks In Motion’s navigation applications that exist but have yet to be discovered by the masses.

Take, for instance, the “411 Search” feature available on NIM’s VZ Navigator on Verizon Wireless. Did you know you could dial 411 from your phone, talk to a live operator and find whatever you’re looking for, and then get that place’s location and phone number automatically sent to your cell phone’s navigator software? Don’t like typing things into your cell phone? No problem! Just dial 411, and once you’ve found what you’re looking for, say “yes, operator, I would like to get instant driving directions on my cell phone.” Bam! Your call ends, your navigator application starts up and saves the place you just found on 411 into your Recent Places, then jumps into full turn-by-turn spoken directions. With this service, you don’t have to type a single word, and you don’t even have to look at your phone while driving – just talk and listen!

Along this route (no pun intended, really), the latest version of VZ Navigator (version 4.5) gives you another way to speed up the hurdle of having to type things in. This latest version supports voice input, or what techies may refer to as Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR). Just speak the address you want to map or get driving directions to, or speak the name or type of the place you’re looking for, and you’ve already saved yourself some time and effort.

The 411 Search feature is based on NIM’s Place Messaging platform (part of the NAVBuilder platform), which, like text messages, lets a user send a message from a Web site or wireless device to a wireless device. The difference, or upgrade, compared to a text message, is that you’re sending a whole information package about a place, including address, phone number and more. Two main uses of this connectivity feature: trip planning and social networking.

So you’ve decided to brave a National Lampoon’s-style summer vacation in the family wagon across this great country of ours, and you want to use your phone-based navigator to get you to 10 great tourist stops (the last being Wally World, of course)? Log on to your navigator’s Web site (e.g. www.vznavigator.com) and save all 10 places to your Favorites. Then next time you run your navigator on your phone, you “Synchronize,” which means your navigator downloads your updated Favorites list. When you’re ready to roll, just choose which Favorite you want to go to, and the navigator takes it from there. Guaranteed to be easier than what the poor Griswolds went through!

Finally, you could also use Place Messaging to share places with friends and meet there. It’s great for ad-hoc get-togethers, and business owners love this because word-of-mouth advertising is as easy as text messaging… actually easier.