Scenic Motorcycle Navigation

Tried Rever, Harley App, Calimoto, Indian App, Dtecht and several others. I’m not commenting on the social part of all these apps. It’s just not what I needed an app for. I’m commenting on route planning, map quality, poi data, on screen navigation and the ui/ux quality and intuitiveness. Scenic spanks the others. Isn’t that what a navigation app should do? It’s rock solid, does not crash, does not do anything stupid, stores and retrieves from server so it’s sync’d when I set up on an iPad and navigate on a phone. Oh… it has a real iPad app rather than a puny phone screen in the middle of your iPad. So disappointing to have a nice iPad and see a phone sized interface emulated in the middle of your beautiful screen. When you think you want to do something, you can. The “here” maps… whatever that is, have as much detail as you would ever need all through Alaska, the Yukon, British Columbia, Calgary down through the Western US and into Mexico. In planning 5000 miles of a route it could find every poi for starts, finishes, gas stops, hotels… it’s crazy stupid how hard and how smart somebody (Guido?) is that programmed this. I have a dozen technology patents and I know 1st class A+ software when I see it and this software is a steal. I pray you can rest guilt free at night knowing how little you paid to use it in comparison to the scores of months of labor that went into coding it. It’s really, really good.

Sure there are better options out there for routing and navigating your rides but they’ll cost you $500+. This app combined with a phone mount and power source is just as useful. Route sharing is easy and uses standard GpX files that are fairly universal no matter what system your friends are using. Creating a route within the app is easy and can be done without struggle while eating lunch and shared with everyone immediately. One of my favorite features is to search for already popular rides and edit them to cater to your needs along the route. This is like having a tour guide everywhere you go as many local riders share good routes for you to enjoy when you’re in a new area and for the most part I’ve found them to be some amazing rides I never would’ve found otherwise. I’d recommend anyone give this app a try. Spend an hour or two playing around with it and I’m sure you’ll start to understand how it works and find new rides around your area you probably never knew of. One downside is when your routing preference is set to “extra curvy” it will send you down a lot of dead end roads and it’s especially good at seeking out roundabouts. Not a major issue, just pay attention when letting it plan your route for you and you can fix it in less than 5 minutes using waypoints.

I own a 2019 Harley-Davidson Street Glide with the optional larger screen Infotainment GPS system and leading group rides. I also love the power of my Apple iPad Pro 11 inch (new Pro models that came out on late 2018) and coupled with the Scenic app and an Apple Pencil (2nd generation) you have a powerful Road Captain ride planning console that has taken my ride planning game to the next level. I love the graphics, the ability to place waypoints with pinpoint precision (with some practice), and being able to do so from the comfort of wherever I am (my favorite leather chair, my bed, or sitting at a bar as I plan away with my favorite drink to go along). I love that I can also download Scenic on my iPhone and check ride plans on the fly and even make tweaks and adjustments on the fly. I also love that I can export GPX files directly from my iPad onto a memory stick from which I can then easily load ride plans onto my Harley's Infotainment system (which has a beautiful mapping interface IMO). I have friends that are hard core Garmin BaseCamp lovers but they have seemingly fallen asleep at the wheel as they haven't yet developed a compelling and user-friendly app for iOS devices. I highly recommend Scenic and celebrate Guido's work. By the way he is super responsive to questions and publishes a great newsletter too!