Life is a Process

We took the plunge and purchased a Ford Escape Hybrid 2008 back in May, complete with the “fancy” navigation package.  (To afford this purchase, we traded in our 1999 Ford Escort ZX2 and returned the leased Ford Escape a few months early.)  Google Maps does a better job at finding places and plotting routes than does this thing.

We recently drove from the middle of Indiana to the eastern corner of West Virginia. The Nav system wanted to send us off to Cincinnati for the shortest route (it isn’t) or on backroads for the fastest route (they aren’t). And when we did take a known shortcut that is also faster, the Nav system complained and requested that we do a legal U-turn. Over and over and over again.

The maps are not current. Google Maps has had our house pinpointed for at least 4 years now (it’s a new-ish subdivision). The Nav maps can’t seem to locate it - it’s like our house is in an abyss or “fluidic space”. Because the maps aren’t current, the points of interest are also not current. Why oh why didn’t they have this system be update-able over satellite? Why does it cost so bloody much to get an updated DVD?

I’m not even going to express my frustration with the user interface. Let me just say that they need to hang out more with Apple UI or Google UI engineers.