I start my music and navigation route before leaving my garage, and any other interactions (volume up/down, skip song) are buttons on my steering wheel. What do I need voice input for?
(I use Android Auto, but it's basically the same thing for these purposes)
Do people really use navigation apps often enough for this to be an issue?
Yes, it's one of the most common usages of a phone in the car. And most people I know have exactly that workflow: find and set a navigation destination while parked, then drive there without interacting with the phone.
Are you asking if people use apps to get directions? I don’t have data to back this up, but I’d guess that nav integration is one of the most popular features of CarPlay and Android Auto.
I depend on it for road trips, navigating to unfamiliar destinations, or even just sharing ETAs with people
I'm not sure I've seen anyone drive further than about 10 minutes away without Google Maps in the last 5 years.
Or maybe everyone's misunderstanding your question?
I don't really understand why anyone would need sat nav for a ten minute drive.
Neither, but my coworkers are apparently unable to carpool to a lunch spot 5 mins away that we visit every 2-3 weeks without setting nav first.
Once the city you live in gets large enough, memorizing the routes just becomes a non starter. I have my route to work almost memorized but due to construction or crashes it changes so often it is hard to cement it. (Seoul)
Because the traffic isn't known to you but it is to Google. I could take two routes, one is faster depending on circumstances, and Google knows those circumstances.
Is it really faster though?
All you have now is two routes with a roughly equal amount of traffic on.
One of those routes will be a massive detour.
How do you know those routes have a roughly equal amounts of traffic? Or that there’s only two routes? I usually see at least three possible routes with my commute (with some forking), and at least one shortcut. During heavy traffic one optimized route can at least save 10-15 minutes than the slower one(s).
It's really unlikely that you're saving any time at all.
And you know this how
Yes, of course. In my case Waze to get there efficiently, OSMand App for topographic maps, and occasionally Apple Maps (works well with addresses in Calendar) and Sygic. I use them in the car, and on my bike: ruggedised CarPlay / Android Auto screens are rapidly displacing ruggedised satnavs on bikes. Playing audiobooks and podcasts is handy, as is getting text messages read out with dictation for reply, but it's navigation which is the killer app for ACP/AA.
I use navigation apps on any trip where there's a possibility of traffic, because they'll route me around it.
I use navigation via Google Maps/Android Auto almost every time I drive anywhere, easily north of 95% of the time.
Why? Are you driving somewhere completely unfamiliar where you have no mental model of how to get there every time?
I just kind of don't get why people are so into it.
A bunch of reasons, in no particular order: Having my phone visibly in-use makes it easier to avoid the temptation of touching it. I have a long history of playing video games, and seeing a "mini-map" is just how I'm used to navigating, even when I know the way. Having navigation that incorporates real-time conditions helps me avoid construction, traffic jams, or other miscellaneous issues. I have a pretty bad sense of direction, and it takes multiple trips to internalize routes, which doesn't happen because I drive infrequently (typically less than weekly, because I prefer to take the bus).
I guess it didn't occur to me that people might not remember how to get places in real life.
I don't think I could stand to have any sort of lit-up screen doing something in my eyeline when I'm driving. I turn off the backlight on the dashboard when I'm driving at night because it annoys me.
Again, it's also helpful for warning realtime issues like poor traffic conditions, road obstacles, speed traps, etc.
I don't know why people don't seem to understand what I mean when I say "I don't want any kind of lit-up screen in my field of view for any reason".
Why would I care about speed traps or road obstacles? "Poor traffic conditions" isn't really something I can do much about, either.
The response is to “it didn't occur to me that people might not remember how to get places in real life”, which is a rather limited understanding of why people might use navigation. I am not here to preach to you the benefits of this technology, simply clarifying an additional use case. There’s no need to conflate your own needs or tastes with the rest of the driving populace, either.
Also, those notifications can likely be conveyed using audio-only warnings, anyway. Making all of this discussion a bit moot.
Finally the entire benefit of live navigation is to find alternate routes with less traffic! That is something you could literally do about.
Most of the places I drive, there aren't really any practical alternative routes that don't add several hours and often things like a ferry journey to your trip.
I don't want audio alerts for anything either. It's really simple - I don't want anything in the car that beeps, flashes, lights up, makes noise, or indeed does anything that is not directly part of making the car go in the required direction at the required speed.
Okay, that’s fine for yourself, but as seen in this subthread, other people have different tastes, and needs.
Because my 15 minute drive can be a 60 minute drive depending on traffic and there are 3 viable routes I could take.
Traffic changes while I'm driving and it automatically updates. An accident can occur on a bridge I'm approaching and I can get detoured and save actual time that I can spend with loved ones instead.
If I'm driving later at night, construction may block off my normal route and I can still get wherever I'm going.
I also get notifications for hazards like objects on the road, disabled vehicles, or events that are going to cause traffic. (I use Waze)
And the cost is zero. When I get into my car it automatically syncs and off I go. There's no reason to NOT have it.
The cost isnt zero, previously you were exercising your brain and spatial awareness, you've now offloaded that critical thinking. Repeat this often enough in all areas of your life and you'll start to see impacts down the line on brain and memory function.
Taxi/ambulance drivers who are required to memorise large parts of their city have the lowest dementia risk out of all (studied) professions.
This is about optimizing a commute with realtime info. There are other cognitive training methods beyond being Jamie Foxx in Collateral.
Every day. Not for knowing how to get to a destination necessarily, but to get routed better.
I’m perplexed too, but I used to study the Hudson’s map book for my metro area for fun before I could drive and have been driving for 25 years, and I didn’t have a phone with GPS until 2015 or so.
I don’t use active navigation, if I don’t know hot go get where I am going I just memorize the portion of the route I don’t know and then drive there. I will occasionally see what route is recommended due to road construction, but I generally know all of the proposed routes so I don’t need GPS once I pick one.
I avoid using active GPS navigation so my mental map of the road network stays in my brain, I think orientation/navigation is an important skill to maintain and using active turn-by-turn GPS destroys it.