The free turn-by-turn sat nav feature of Google Maps has now been made available in Ireland and the UK across all Android devices.
Phones running Android 1.6 and above will be able to download Google Maps Navigation Beta from Android Market and get turn-by-turn voice guidance as a free feature of Google Maps.
Key features of this Android app include search by voice, street-level view and satellite view.
Likely to shake up the traditional sat-nav market, Google Maps Navigation is free to download and subsequent updates are also free because the up-to-date mapping data is constantly refreshed on Google Maps itself.
Rather than inputting an address on this app you can simply speak the name of the place or business you wish to get to and it will be Googled and mapped out.
There are also live traffic reports integrated with the sat nav whereby an on-screen indicator glows green, yellow or red based on current traffic conditions along your route and a single touch on the indicator toggles a traffic view that shows the traffic ahead.
By Marie Boran
