G-Park has more flash than function

Someday, someone is going to make the perfect parking app. G-Park by Posimotion LLC is almost there.  While its sleek look, intuitive interface, and camera features are picture perfect, the actual parking functions – locating your spot and getting back to it – just aren’t up to snuff.

I’m not saying G-Park doesn’t work.  It does. It just takes too much time.  Getting an accurate position in G-Park takes up to two minutes.  I don’t mind waiting a little bit for accuracy, but two minutes is too long.  Parking is a mindless task, and parking apps should require the same amount of brain power.  If it takes more than 30 seconds to use, I might as well memorize the spot the old-fashioned way.

That said, I do like G-Park’s Take Photo and Add Notes functions.  I can take a quick snapshot and add a note to help me remember a detail about where I parked.  The camera is only useful in well-lit areas – if you park on a side street at night, you’re out of luck – but that’s an iPhone problem more than anything else.

G-Park’s biggest issue is its maps.  When you tap “Park Me!” you get a Microsoft Visual Earth satellite view of your location.  That’s cool.  Satellite views are helpful, especially in parking lots.  When you tap “Where Did I Park?” though, you get the default view in Google Maps.  Where did Virtual Earth go?  Switching maps in a parking lot is like parking on the street somewhere and having everybody paint their houses different colors before you return.

Until it can work out its bi-polar mapping and speed up its positioning mechanism, I can’t see myself using G-Park every day, but at 99 cents, it’s earned a spot in my apps folder.

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