Test Drive: CoPilot Live iPhone GPS navigation app

In our experience thus far, all initial iPhone navigation apps have some teething pains. In the rush to market, many have cut corners on features, choosing instead to roll them out in future updates—a real benefit of being software, rather than product, focused. This is true for CoPilot Live North America from ALK Technologies, a budget-priced application that shows promise.
 
We paid $34.99 for version 8.0.0.331 that included a map and points of interest (POI) database covering the United States and Canada. Since then, we have updated to version 8.0.0.417, which has some additional features
 
For a low purchase price, CoPilot Live North America provides basic route guidance with some useful features like multi-destination routing and a direction list with the ability to exclude a road. However, it lacks features that are increasingly common to the better portable navigation devices (PNDs) such as lane assistance, reality view, speed limit icons, and text-to-speech for spoken street names.
 

The graphic interface and map screen have vivid colors and good contrast, though the display overall feels a bit busy. In general, iPhone integration is lacking, as it is with other early iPhone navigation apps. It does have an option to select a destination from a user's contact list, but the functionality is so poor as to be of negligible benefit.
 
A key concern is the map accuracy. We have found that the iPhone in general is not as accurate in pinpointing a user's location as dedicated navigators. This limitation is exacerbated with our version of CoPilot Live, which had difficulty in finding some addresses and points of interest in our field evaluation. ALK Technologies has told us that it is working on improvements.
 
CoPilot Live North America is offered at an attractive price. As the software evolves it may provide very good value, but not yet. For now, we would recommend choosing  from other tested iPhone apps.

Read the final CoPilot Live review.

Also, see our full reviews of AT&T Navigator, iGo My Way, Navigon Mobile Navigator, Sygic Mobile Maps, TomTom iPhone application, and X Road G-Map.

For more information on portable automotive GPS navigation systems, see our Ratings, first looks, and buying advice and watch our video guide. Discuss GPS devices in the forums.

 — Jeff Bartlett and Frank Spinelli