Apple Watch Review Diary - Maps/Navigation


The navigation link with Apple Maps is pretty cool. Basically you can initiate a trip on your phone and it will automatically display info on the watch. Similarly, you can initiate a trip on the watch, and the phone will run its map display. The difference is if you initiate on the watch, you won't get voice guidance on the iPhone.

On the watch, the display offers the info I like to see when driving. It shows me my next turn, distance to my next turn, and ETA for arrival. Plus the time. You can tap/page to a new screen to see your position on the map.

When it's time to make your turn, the watch will alert you with a series of taps and a blinker turn signal sound.

Navigation seems to show the best strengths of the Apple Watch and iPhone integration. There's no sync setup to get it all running, they just simply not only work together, but complement each other for better navigation.

Watch-only mode does require you to take your eyes of the road to see your next turn, so I'd probably prefer to still hear the iPhone. Still, the tap alerts are handy to grab your attention if you've got kids in the car or something. The biggest thing though I like is the at-a-glance info. Often I'll be just driving along and wonder how long to the next turn or how I'm doing on time. I pick up the iPhone to look at that info, but here I can just glance at my wrist.