ALK CoPilot Live Premium review

ALK is one of the longest-running players in the sat-nav app business. CoPilot Live dates back to before the sat-nav became a separate device. CoPilot Live Premium is the second incarnation of CoPilot since it crossed over from Windows Mobile with version 8 to the current leading smartphone platforms, Apple's iPhone and Google's Android. It's a major overhaul, both in its interface and underlying functions. This week we took a look at the iPhone incarnation, although the Android version arrived first and there's an iPad build too, for those who fancy a 10.1in sat-nav screen.

CoPilot Live Premium was previously announced as version 9, and the annoying news for owners of the previous edition is that there is no upgrade offer available. With such a major update, this is likely to be a major irritation. The changes are obvious right from the more aesthetically pleasing startup splash screen, and the map is easier on the eye too. The menu still pops up over the map, but here again the design is much more graphically streamlined than before.



There are a number of enhancements to the routing capabilities. You could already navigate to a full UK postcode, which is a premium addition for Navigon's iPhone app, although it's also a standard feature on TomTom's app. Routes can be calculated for recreational vehicles, motorbikes, bicycles and walking as well as cars. But you can also now navigate to a GPS-tagged photo stored on your phone, which might actually prove useful considering the iPhone camera app tags its photos automatically.

An absolutely unique feature is the ability to browse the calculated route and drag it to another waypoint, or away from an area you wish to avoid. CoPilot then recalculates an appropriate new route. It's not necessarily a feature you would use every day, but certainly handy if you want to avoid an area or go a specific way, perhaps through the city suburbs instead of out to the ring road.