Yes, but that does not hold true for a free app that just enables some functionality that was supposedly present in the phone when I bought it. You don't need a google email account for turn-by-turn navigation with voice instruction.
1. Google Market requires account. You needed Market to download the updates to Google Maps.
2. Google Maps itself does not require google account. It will work with one, if available (for Lattitude), but for navigation, it is not required. If you have invalid credentials, for example, it will give you info "Login failed" and that's it.
Yes, I understand, that when it was downloading updates from Market as a first thing after turning on, it is not something pleasant. However, that's what users want, they want their system as updated as possible and Google obliged (see also flames here, on HN, how Google does not care and does not force the vendors to provide current Android releases. Removing apps from OS release cycle and updating them independently is a part of sidestepping the vendors/carriers).
Once again, you're missing the point entirely, you can repeat your non-explanation over and over again it does not change my perspective as a customer. If you include turn-by-turn navigation then voice is not 'optional', it is a safety measure. Especially for a device which unlike other navigators for vehicular use is not glued to your windshield which makes it even more dangerous to use without voice.
Sending and receiving internet mail have nothing to do with being able to use a navigational package, not matter what 'google market requires', if maps are free and the app is free then I don't need an account.
> Yes, I understand, that when it was downloading updates from Market as a first thing after turning on, it is not something pleasant.
It's simply wrong. I need an account of some sort at the moment that I download a paid product, not before then.
I know the market is set up in such a way that that is not the case, but it is my opinion, not a fact, as a customer that to require registration of an email account with an email provider which I do not intend to use in order to download basic functionality on to a device I have just bought from an unrelated provider is a process that is not 'unpleasant' but broken.
> However, that's what users want,
Not this one.
> as updated as possible and Google obliged
It could easily do that by just downloading a bunch of stuff from a repository a-la apt-get without requiring registration of anything whatsoever.
I really don't understand why your 'that's the way it works' view tramples my 'it doesn't have to work that way' view, I really couldn't care less how it works, even if it does work that way, it is a negative experience and you try to avoid those in people using your products.
So go get a 3rd party gps app if you don't like it; You're not forced to download the voice app. I've been using the Navigation app on my Nexus One for a year now without downloading it. It just beeps instead of talking, and I actually like it better that way, compared to my wife's phone where she did download the voices, and it's just some crappy synthesized lady who's hard to understand and talks waaayyy too much.
Actually, you did download it. Google Maps (includes Navigation, Lattitude, Places, etc) was updated several times since you bought your N1. It was updated using Google Market.
But I wasn't forced to download the voice instructions. That's included as a separate package, and although it bugs me every time I start navigation to download or skip, I'm always free to choose "Skip" and use the turn-by-turn navigation without the voice instructions.
