Many, many years ago while driving in our car trying to get to the IKEA in San Diego I could visibly see, but not figure out how to navigate to (no smart phones then), I wished an app existed (before there were apps) that would help with navigation.

Have you ever seen a distant point of interest you'd like to visit but have no idea what it is or how to get there?

I'd love to be able to open up Google maps on my phone, aim my phone camera at a certain POI, then the app would tell me how to navigate there. GPS knows my location and my elevation as well as the direction my phone is pointed from the built in compass. There are astronomy apps that tell you what constellation you're facing--even through the earth. Have these concepts be merged together to create the ultimate way finding app? Does it already exist because I would love to give it a try?

Paul

Google maps on mobile devices lets you find a location on a map then navigate to that location using “Choose On Map”, which drops a pin at that location.

Many cycling GPS units do the same.

Use the camera ?, where I live it’s entirely flat and I can’t see more than 1/4 mile. You need elevation or to be high enough to see further than a block for that to have any use.

It’s called an ‘Augmented Reality Navigation’ app and several apps exist. Gogglemaps has an AR mode will do exactly what you describe, but there are some other apps as well. The apps work by the user pointing the camera around and the app identifies landmarks and gives you the best route to them along with other information. Search for ‘Augmented Reality’ for whatever phone you use.

Way back, I was using Mapopolis on a (gasp) Palm for navigation. It wasn't perfect, but was much better than nothing. But on more than one occasion, I'd give it an address and it would direct me to what it thought was the location, and indeed, it was very close...but on the wrong side of some barrier. Routed onto a freeway ramp behind a business. Wrong side of a set of railroad tracks (with no crossing nearby) for another.

Had assumed we had all that behind us. Tried Sygic very recently (mostly because I was hoping I could import RideWithGPS routes into it for pre-riding or sagging routes...no luck), and had it route me down a road parallel but oh-so-close to my destination. The building was physically closer to that road than the one it had a driveway on. Inconvenient, but I had to laugh that 20+ years on, as I drove a mile further to get onto the correct road. it was the same "counts in horseshoes" error Mapopolis had made.