CycleStreets App

So I hunted high and low and I found it – yep an app I don’t really like, neither do I find it that useful (hang on aren’t those two things one and the same)?  The name of this wonderful find is CycleStreets.

So what is it?

Well it is a route planner – much like Google maps – the only difference being it is not a very good map that is shown with poor resolution but it is supposed to map out perfect routes for cyclists - I wish.

So what is not to like?

The route finding take little or no account for hills – funny that it being specifically for cyclists. It doesn’t tend to find the quickest route. Most importantly of all it has no SatNav capabilities – so all you can do is keep looking at your “itinery” and then search around for a street name (not easy in some boroughs of London)  I am not sure about your thoughts but the idea of stopping every few minutes to check I am going in the right direction is not overly useful. As far as I can see (and I stand to be corrected, you have to put you start and end point of a journey on the map by sticking your finger on it and placing a flag – not at all useful  - I for one mostly use postcodes

What is there to like?

Well if you happen to be lost and haven’t taken the effort to load some of the better apps out there, or taken a proper map with you, then it will save you getting lost. Well I don’t know about you but when you can only rate something against having nothing at all then it does not fill me confidence. It does enable you to set you average speed – that way it will give you an expected travel time, but really this is of little to no value if you can do basic estimation of speed/distance = time in your head. Anyway the time taken has absolutely no relation to time spent at traffic lights or time wasted being blocked by buses and then remonstrating with the bus driver (giving the finger slows you down you see). The app is free as well – so you can’t be too mean on it.

Will it stay on my iPhone?

Well I think you know the answer to this – but just in case you are slow on the pickup then let me make it clear – NO! It is a good effort but really there is so much better out there that it is a complete waste of disk space.

Mambo Score 4/10