i'm interested in a gps app

I use and highly recommend Navigon..

Hi Carlos
There are many differences between each GPS.
I will star telling about that all depend where you live.
Seeing Eyes GPS only work for USA and UK well for UK is hundle under difference GPS named and will find fiew changes between each one.
Seeing Eyes is available from the app store and can be purchase on 3 ways:
monthly $9.99 it means you can use or try the app for a single month if you like it you can continue using it per other month or purchase on the following ways.
per year I am not sure the prices for because only I tried for a single month but the prices are around
1 year $80
3 years $130
unlimited licence $299.99 only have to pay once for life
the seeing Eyes app is free and can download from the app store just to clarify once the app is installed on the iOS device and open it for the first time is when show the optiones to purchase mention above.
also remember Seeing Eyes require the iOS include data plan.
The main features are:
Seeing Eye GPS™ is a fully accessible turn-by-turn GPS iPhone app with all the normal
navigation features plus features unique to blind users.
Unique to The Seeing Eye GPS™
• Instead of multiple layers of menus, the three important navigation elements are
on the lower portion of every screen: Route, POIs and Location.
• At intersections, the cross street and its orientation are announced
• Intersections are described (e.g. four-way) with the clock face orientation of
the streets.
• There are two choices for POI data (Navteq, and Foursquare).
• Directions are configured appropriately for Pedestrian and Vehicle routes, including
heads-up announcements for approaching turns, turn now, continue straight and upcoming
turns.
• If one wanders off the route, it's automatically recalculated and updated turn
information is announced.
• Point your phone in a given direction to hear what is nearby with the LookAround
Wand.
• Nearby Points of interest and intersections are automatically announced.
• Ability to run in the background or with the screen locked for iOS 7. If you are
running an older version of iOS 6 only the sound effects will play and the phone
will vibrate at turns and at your destination but no speech output.
link from the app store
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/seeing-eye-gps/id668624446?mt=8

Sendero lookaround
As Seeing Eyes only work for USA
this app is free of charge now from the app store but it hasn't updated for long time and the information that provide is not the best.
the mains features are
provide the current address but never exact.
create POI's
Sendero GPS LookAround for the iPhone, with Voice Over, announces the current street,
city, cross street, heading and nearby points of interest. Unlike Sendero's other
applications, there is no turn-by-turn navigation on the iPhone yet. No ads are displayed
in LookAround.
This app require data conection.
the link from the app store is the follow:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sendero-gps-lookaround/id386831856?mt=8
Ariadne GPS
This app works Global it means all over the World.
I think the price is $5.99
about this app is pretty much basic information who offer by not turn by turn feature or nothing like that.
this app is to much better that sendero lookaround but not the best.
still have this app on my iOS device but I haven't used for the last 2 years.
to use it require data connection but one cool feature is when you have POI's saved on it doesn't require data to track those points.
The mains features and description is the follow
Ariadne GPS is more than a simple gps app.
Besides offering you the possibility to know your position and to get information
about the street, the number, etc. it also lets you explore the map of what's around
you.
What do we mean by saying "explore"? You'll deal with a talking map. If you have
VoiceOver activated on your device, you will be able to know the street names and
numbers that are around you by touching them.
Just put your finger on the screen of your device, when showing the map and moving
it you will be told the info's about the street you're touching.
Your position is on the center of the screen. What's in front of you is on the top
half of the screen and things behind you are on the bottom half of the screen.
You can also explore a different region than the one around you by telling the app
the street and the city.
You can ask for information about your position at any time, also activating a function,
called monitor, that will give you this info periodically (Please read the note below).
This app has also got some other useful features that might help when walking or
traveling by bus, train etc.
If you add your favourite points to the app database, you can be alerted when you
get closer than a certain distance to one of them.
This app is completely accessible using VoiceOver and gives you access to information
that are normally unavailable to people using the speech synthesizer and can be therefore
especially useful to blind and partially sighted people.
The link from the app store
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ariadne-gps/id441063072?mt=a

BlindSquare
This app works all over the World. global app
the price is $29.99
This app is fully GPS I been using BlindSquare for 2 and half years and is awsom the app developer always listen the comments and comes with a new version per month and new features.
Also this app work with some third party apps to provide more information and gives more versatility using differences maps as
Google maps
own apple maps
Navegon
Motion EX GPS
and more
and bus transportation to create routes providing buses numbers all kind of details.
the mains features are the following.
BlindSquare makes you sense what's around you. The only thing you need to do is listen.
BlindSquare is a new solution that combines the latest technology to help the blind
with their daily lives. It has been developed in collaboration with blind people
and carefully field tested. You need either an iPhone or an iPad to get started.
It also supports some additional accessories to enhance the experience.
How does it work?
BlindSquare uses GPS and the compass to locate you. It then gathers information about
the surrounding environment from FourSquare. BlindSquare has some unique algorithms
to decide what information is the most relevant and then speaks it to you with high
quality speech synthesis.
“What's the most popular café within 200 meters radius? Where is the post office
or the library?”
Using BlindSquare as a GPS solution:
When you start the app, it will start telling you the interesting places and street
crossings around you. By changing the radius, you can limit the area you are interested
in. You can also search by search term or by category. You can select an interesting
place from the search results and perform the following tasks:
1) Get contact info (address, phone number)
2) Open twitter feed or restaurant menu (if provided)
3) Make a phone call
4) Start tracking the place (BlindSquare will assist you by repeating the distance
and the clock face direction)
5) Start your favourite navigator for turn-by-turn instructions (TomTom, Navigon
or Apple Maps)
BlindSquare is aware of when you travel by car, bus or train and starts to report
interesting places in front of you (for example, the next stops) and street crossings
when you are passing them.
You can also save your own private places to iCloud so they will be found with your
every device.
Using BlindSquare as a FourSquare client:
If you like to play FourSquare, you can do the following with BlindSquare:
1) Get a list of nearby FourSquare venues
2) When you are in a place, you can check in by shaking your device
3) Do a check in with commenting and twitter/facebook sharing
4) Correct the location of the place
BlindSquare supports the following languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian,
Dutch, Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Czech, Russian, Estonian, Polish, Arabic
and Hungarian. VoiceOver usage is supported but it also includes higher quality additional
speech synthesis by Acapela Text-To-Speech from Acapela Group.
link from the app store
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/blindsquare/id500557255?mt=8

Hi you don't necessarily have to buy BlindSquare in order to use NAVIGON or tom-tom however, if you don't buy a GPS app which has been designed specifically with blind people in mind you will lose some really helpful features for example Street announcements as you pass them. In my opinion, this would make turn by turn directions slightly harder as he would need to figure out where you are. However, if you really wanted to just buy NAVIGON or tom-tom you could do that. It wouldn't matter whether you had BlindSquare or not.

By itself, BlindSquare does not give turn by turn directions however you can get turn by turn directions using it with something like NAVIGON or Apple maps. The Seeing eye app does give turn by turn directions however if it's a specific doorway of a restaurant that you want you can mark it as one of your places in BlindSquare and track it from there. to mark it as a place though you would need to physically be there. I hope this helped somewhat.

Hi Carlos again
The 4 iOS apps who I wrote on my previous comment are specific for blind
Personaly I think the best blind GPS app is BlindSquare and behind is Seeing Eyes remember this is my personal opinion
And I decide for BlindSquare because these provide more information for us.
Okay only blindSquare and Seeing eyes provide turn by turn navigation.
Navigon only is a is Standar GPS app Who gives turn by turn navigation but not a lot of details like Street intersection current location etc. etc.
The only good thing about navigon is once you download it in your device doesn't require data connection
I can say Google maps is far away better to navigon.
Google maps is doing excellent job talking about Accessibility And definitely beats own Apple maps and navigon as well.

It all depends. I used Seeing eye when I moved to a new place and had to find a school that I am going to. But, you can use either seeing eye or blindSquare, or whatever you want. Personally seeing eye does all I need, however I have BlindSquare as well but don't use it as frequently.

I love Blind Squared. I use it all the time and Google Maps is free and on the ap store and they work together well enough. There is also one called waypoint, though I've never used it. You can try it too. But truly, Blind Squared is the best 30 bucks I ever spent. I never get lost and though I haven't tried to mark a place yet, you can do it.

Good luck and happy exploring.

PS MDDonalds is terrible for you!

Carlos:

There is no one "best" GPS for the blind since what is "best" is in the mind of the user. To that extent, we cannot give you definitive advice. some people like one app better; some like another. I have Navigon and BlindSquare. Once you're at the doorway you wish, you can set that as a favorite location in BlindSquare.

However, I'm going to express an unpopular opinion here and in doing so, please bear in mind that I do use BlindSquare and Navigon. That opinion is this: I don't think *any* GPS app is going to do what you want. If I understand correctly, what you *really* want is an app that will give you specific directions as you're walking along such as "two degrees off path -- adjust your angle two degrees clockwise". I don't think BlindSquare will really help you since you're traversing a somewhat irregular environment. In my opinion, your best bet is just to practice, practice, practice, observing any landmarks you find discernible. after all, GPS apps don't really know what obstructions you'll face.

Sometimes the pre-iDevice methods work best.

Hello!

In this podcast you can listen to how BlindSquare works together with Apple Maps: https://audioboom.com/boos/2695572-how-to-use-blindsquare-with-apple-maps

This is same with Google Maps: https://audioboom.com/boos/2672672-how-to-use-google-maps-with-blindsquare

I agree with the above comment. From the sounds of it, you're dealing with irregularity with the location in question. Frankly, I don't know how a GPS will help with this as from the sounds of it, its all on the same street, if not the same location. Might I also suggest you consult with a mobility instructor as they will be able to learn the rout more affectively than any GPS app.

Carlos: Yes, you can have more than one maps app on your phone. It used to be that Google Maps was the default maps app used by Apple; however, they went out and created their own ap system. However, I find that downloading the free Google Maps app and using that in conjunction with BlindSquare works very well. Also, with Blindsquare, you can find the restaurant you are looking for and tell Blindsquare to track it. If GPS signal on your device is good, it will tell you things like "restaurant name, 400 feet at 4:00." It might not get you exactly to the doorway, but it will get you close enough where you should be able to find it with no problems. Good luck.

Just be aware that your iPhone won't save you from having to keep your wits about you and having good mobility skills and being willing to experiment, make mistakes, learn from those mistakes and going on.

As I say, although I certainly endorse the apps you're buying (I have them also), I sincerely doubt (other than allowing you to mark the entrance to Micky D's you want to find as one of your favorites) that either app will tell you enough to satisfy you. For instance, I rather doubt that Google Maps will tell you about both entrances to Micky D's; it'll just tell you the building is there (which you already know).

No app can account for construction or anticipate a user's exact needs. Use these apps, and they are good ones, but it's not going to hold your hand when you're walking.

When you read the words "turn by turn" you aren't getting an app that's going to guide you, a blind person to an exact destination. "Turn By Turn" means it can assist a driver to navigate, by telling him when to turn left, when to continue straight ahead and what highway exit to take. Even if a blindness app has turn by turn features, they are similar.

But, there are wayfinding apps like myway, which might be more useful for you. I work on a large college campus, where the navigation apps aren't that helpful. It's because there are no streets, just paths and buildings. But once I'm at a building I know, I can landmark it and use an app like myWay to locate it again. AriadneGPS also works well for that kind of precise location finding. You have to find it first and mark it; then you can use some apps to get back there.

In general a GPS app will tell you where you are and some will let you create a route which is nothing more than a bunch of landmarks strung together.

Another confusion I see in this thread is the idea of multiple maps. In the old days, when you connected a GPS to a computer using a serial port, you couldn't run multiple programs to attempt to simultaneously access the GPS device.

But with the iPHONE, it has the concept of "Location services". The apps all query the operating system to tell it where you are located. The operating system uses assisted GPS, cell towers, available Wi-Fi and other secrets proprietary to Apple to determine your location. I'm often surprised at how accurate location services are even on my iPOD Touch, which has no cellular service nor GPS to help it determine where it's located.

Anyway, once the operating system has told an app where you are located, that app can pull up maps from a variety of vendors, depending on who they have a licensing arrangement with. Navteq is one such vendor. It has competitors whose names don't come to mind right now. FourSquare uses Open street maps, which are community edited and community supported and license free. Google maps, MapQuest, Yahoo, all use maps from some vendor whose licensing arrangements they may or may not disclose. I know google makes their own maps; their trucks drive around here all the time updating the info.

Seeing-Eye uses the OpenStreet maps and Navteq, their licensing of Navteq's data is what makes their app so pricey!

Anyway, you could find your location on Navigon and Tom-Tom and get identical, or possibly different results. That's OK, because they use different map data. As a previous poster said, Apple used to use Google and now uses Tom-Tom.

By the way the iOS8 Maps app is surprisingly accessible, so don't be in a big hurry to buy more apps if you just need basic information.

So you can run multiple mapping and navigation apps, and they can give you different aspects of what you need. I like both iMOVE and Arriadne personally, and often simply pull up an app called "I'm Right Here" which does just what it says.

BlindSquare is a great application in conjuction with Google maps. I personally preferred BlindSquare's look around compared to Seeing eye GPS look around. I did however like Seeing eye GPS turn by turn directions compared to Google Maps. The great thing about Google maps in conjuction with BlindSquare is that you have a great combo for a small fee. I also like how you can request a Uber driver from BlindSquare.

Regards, Feliciano

There used to be an app called bread crums wher eyou could set bread crums and naggate to that, but yeah practice with your cane. I don't personally believe in GPS apps as you can use the sun and streat noises and other queues to travle, so for now forget and screw gps apps until you are travlign by bus or car. Practice with the cane, and only the cane.