MapQuest Is on Android Auto Now. Nostalgia Will Install It, Street Updates Would Keep It

MapQuest, the service a generation printed directions from before Google Maps existed, has arrived on Android Auto, roughly three decades after it started mapping the web.

The story everyone will write is the nostalgia one. I will install it for that reason and I will delete it a week later, unless it is better at one specific thing.

Here is that thing. I already run two map apps, Google Maps and Maps.me, and the complaint I have with the first one is not the interface or the traffic. It is that street changes take a long time to show up. A turn gets banned, a street changes direction, and the app keeps routing me through it for a while, confidently. That is not a cosmetic failure: it is the app being sure about something that is no longer true, in a car, at a junction.

That is the question worth asking of any newcomer, and it is answerable. How fast does MapQuest pick up a new one-way street? Who feeds it, and how quickly does an edit reach a driver? The company behind it has been doing this longer than anyone, which is either an advantage or an explanation for why it fell behind.

Being on Android Auto at least means it can be tested where it matters, on a screen in the dash rather than on a phone in a cradle.

So, do I buy it? It is free, so install it and keep it alongside what you use. Then wait for the first roadworks in your neighbourhood and see which app notices first. That is the only comparison that counts.