Building on success that saw an impressive 380,000 UK downloads in the last three weeks alone, a top 3 Apple App Chart position in 9 countries, and an astounding 2 million customers to date, sat nav developer skobbler has already taken customer feedback on board to help further develop and significantly improve its industry leading software.
While online navigators will continue to benefit from the fast, free, automatic map updates, version 4.1 users that have opted to install maps to their device for offline use are now able to benefit from a significant update to their maps by downloading the very latest OpenStreetMap data, again for free. As a result, whether navigating online or offline, GPS Navigation 2 users have access to the most consistently updated map of the world for life, avoiding the issue of having to pay for the expensive and infrequent map updates associated with many other navigation software providers, which can be as much as 12 months old at the time of release. The ever evolving OSM maps are now becoming as detailed, if not more so, than most commercially available maps thanks to the constant input and updates provided by the dedicated skobbler and OSM community.
“We’re very happy with the great success of GPS Navigation 2 to date,” says Philipp Kandal, co-founder of skobbler. “The incredible evolution of the OpenStreetMap project, which has again seen significant two-digit percentage quality increases in several areas that are essential for us in the short period since GPS Navigation 2 launched, make it truly the most dynamic digital map on the planet. This can only benefit our customers as we continue to provide them with frequent updates at no cost, especially when you consider that our map updates are always current at the time of release.”
GPS Navigation 2 has reacted to customer feedback and now offers dedicated pedestrian orientation, one of the most requested features in skobbler’s IdeaLog, which allows users to let skobbler know directly what needs to be improved and what should be included in future updates. In addition to iPhone and iPad compatibility to support an even wider audience of iOS customers, skobbler has updated the app to work with GPS devices for the iPod Touch for the first time. skobbler is also pleased to announce that the voices of Wallace and Gromit are now available for customers who want to customise their sat nav.
GPS Navigation 2 delivers new levels of performance in a number of key areas. The software itself has been optimised to work more efficiently with OpenStreetMap data, providing a faster, easier routing experience, and map handling is significantly smoother when zooming thanks to a 15% decrease in map loading time. These new features, combined with a number of significant improvements to stability and performance, further enhance what is already the most comprehensive low-cost sat nav app to make it even more enjoyable to use. Plus for a limited time following release, GPS Navigation 2 will be available for just 69p from the Apple App Store!
“To have 2 million customers in such a short space of time is quite overwhelming,” commented Marcus Thielking, co-founder of skobbler. “It demonstrates again just how popular mobile phone navigation is becoming. We are thrilled to have achieved such a major milestone and are delighted to see so many people using our app. Their input has been instrumental in our development and we would like to thank everyone for helping us to evolve the app into what we believe is the ‘future of sat nav’. Version 4.1 underlines the company’s commitment to develop a genuine alternative to costly and slow updating sat navs, and our promise to our customers is that we will continue to deliver lightning-fast cycles of free updates with significant improvements based on their feedback,” Thielking concludes.
GPS Navigation 2 is a next generation smartphone navigation app featuring the world’s first ‘hybrid’ system, enabling both online and offline navigation. Users can opt to install maps directly to a device to avoid problems caused by data connection loss in locations with poor reception, and potentially offer significant savings on data charges to a mobile, particularly useful when negotiating expensive roaming charges abroad. Maps of countries, continents, or the whole world can also be installed and removed as necessary to allow users to tailor the package to their specific travel needs and manage what can often be limited storage capacity on mobiles.