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CoPilot Live Premium Review: Offline Maps for iPhone, iPad & iPod Touch

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Should someone pay extra for a GPS app like CoPilot Live Premium when the Apple iPhone and iPad come with Maps already pre-installed? We think it’s a good idea for users that need maps even when they lose connectivity.

Using the built-in Maps app on an Apple iPhone or iPad makes sense. All iPhones and iPads come with a free copy. The launch of Apple Maps didn’t go well, but they’re better now. Google offers Google Maps free for iPhone and it’s pretty good too, although we found it less useful recently. The older versions found local points of interests better. They’ve improved traffic info thanks to the acquisition of Waze.

CoPilot Live GPS

We still recommend offline maps apps because of the cost of wireless data, which online maps need. Some users live in areas with weak wireless data making online maps less reliable. Installing the 273MB to 1.5GB of data needed for CoPIlot Live Premium ($19.99 in iTunes App store) helps overcome these problems and turns iPod Touch and Wi-Fi only iPads in useful GPS devices. The iPad mini also makes a great GPS tool.

CoPilot Live GPS points of interest

CoPilot Live Premium looks great and works as expected. The included database of points of interest seemed comprehensive. They break things down by category. Find restaurants nearby or hospitals, banks, schools and even churches. Users can also search their contacts or use PhotoNav, which grabs the geotag of a picture in the phone’s Photos app and navigates to that location.

CoPilot Live GPS searching

We tested the app with places we knew and found that the app put us on the best track most of the time. This summer my son used the app to navigate from our home in North Carolina to a town on Long Island. Unfortunately, CoPilot used the live traffic information to reroute him. He ended up driving through the Holland Tunnel onto 42nd Street in Manhattan instead of using the better route around the city. Despite this, the app served us well with good directions. They’re easy to follow and look clear and correct.

CoPilot Live GPS routing

Improve routes by adding detours, extra destinations and the mode of transportation. Use the extra features to improve the journey. CoPIlot LIve Premium comes with the option to add maps from other locales not included in the original app purchase. More interestingly, users can add ActiveTraffic, Fuel Prices and access to information from Google Local, Twitter, Facebook Places, Wikipedia and Live Weather.

CoPilot Live GPS fuel prices

Before using CoPilot Live Premium we preferred Navigon as our offline GPS app of choice. However, we uninstalled Navigon and now prefer CoPilot Live Premium. It’s worth the price and works great with plenty of extras.

7 Comments

7 Comments

  1. Vic Matson

    08/25/2013 at 12:51 pm

    How about the Android versions of both?

  2. Flintstone

    08/25/2013 at 9:46 pm

    ” …turns iPod Touch and Wi-Fi only iPads in useful GPS devices”

    Only so long as your device can detect nearby Wi-Fi networks and triangulate its location. The Touch and Wi-Fi iPads lack a GPS chip, making them poor choices for navigation outside urban areas.

    Toshiba, Asus and Nexus tablets ($150-$225) include GPS chips. It’s too bad IPads don’t, unless you pay for a WI-Fi + Cellular model.

    • Kevin Purcell

      08/26/2013 at 1:57 pm

      Thanks for helping us clarify this. You’re right that the iPod Touch and iPad don’t include a GPS. I wish they did as well. They still do a decent job a lot of the time. My first gen iPad was Wi-Fi only and it worked about 90 percent of the time in town. Apple should get a clue and add a GPS to compete with other low-end machines like the ones you mentioned. Thanks for reading!

  3. Joshua Talley (@JoshuaTalley)

    08/30/2013 at 1:25 pm

    I have used the Android version for a couple of years now. It’s pretty solid, too. Turns my WiFi Nexus 7 into a very handy travel companion – especially in Europe!

  4. Lost

    08/30/2013 at 8:31 pm

    I found the Android CoPilot GPS free version to be non-intuitive and very difficult to use. Accuracy was suspect with some spectacularly funny choices of routes. Totally useless to me.

  5. On the road

    09/13/2013 at 7:08 am

    I found coPilot premium to be a waste of money for a number of reasons. 1. The GPS did’nt work. 2. No points on interest just gas, restaurant, hotels. 3. Every thing is upgrade pricing.
    4. Hard to navigate between menus.
    I do not recommend this APP.

  6. Andrei Gizpoint

    10/23/2013 at 10:30 pm

    By now there are several better apps ( or at least as good as Copilot ).Apps like iGO Primo and Navigon have great routing and many option to work on and get the perfect journey.Also Sygic is a great apps that became very popular.Alternative routes ,great maps,monthly updates – this is what makes a great app.I reviewed some of those apps here,for a few months using them on my iPHone ( on my way to work,in bussiness travels,etc ) :
    I tested personally most of those apps.iGO Primo is by far my favourite one .Great routing option,and an inteligent way of creating tracks,
    I reviewed iGO Primo vs Sygic and Navigon on this article ,and you can check the differences :
    https://gizpoint.com/4-best-offline-gps-apps-iphone/

    If you can test at least iGO Primo ,you could see what i am talking about.Easy to use,easy to create route with a lots of stops,integrates with Google search..

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