Hints for Using Here I Am Now!
Here I Am Now! opens in a "Standard" map view. Set the desired view to “Standard”, “Satellite”, or “Hybrid“ (Satellite with Street names) by pressing the appropriate button in the Toolbar. Swipe the Navigation Bar switch to the right to turn on voice synthesis (“Voice Off” changed to “Voice On”). Note: Make sure that your sound is turned on to a reasonable volume level, or use attached or bluetooth headsets or earbuds to hear the spoken voice (especially useful when using the companion Apple Watch App). The default setting for voice is "Voice Off". Here I Am Now! can be set to default to "Voice On" in the Here I Am Now! Settings screen or in the Apple Settings App.
Whenever street addresses contain a range of street numbers (e.g.; “220-280 Main St”), Here I Am Now! will not speak the street number or street name. The spoken voice street address will now only occur when there is a single street number with a street name (previously only the street name would be spoken if there was a street number range or no street number - but this resulted in excessive speaking when traveling fast). However, the full range of street numbers will be displayed. Whenever you are traveling too fast for Here I Am Now! to speak every address, it will skip addresses to do its best to keep up with you. Here I Am Now! will not repeat speaking the same address, unless there is another intervening address. If you are traveling too fast, this intervening address may only be displayed, not spoken. Speech rate can be adjusted slower or faster in the Here I Am Now! Settings screen. A faster speech rate will allow Here I Am Now! to speak more addresses when traveling fast. The current address will be spoken one time whenever you touch the address field contained at the bottom of several screens (the address is spoken even when voice is turned off, but only when the address has been updated)
On all screens you can turn off location services by pressing the “Stop” button. To turn location services back on so that Here I Am Now! can follow you, merely press the “Follow” button. To zoom in and out or move around on the map display, you must turn location services off by pressing the “Stop” button. Whenever location services is on the map snaps to your current location with a fixed map view.
To change to different screens, just press ≡ on the Here I Am Now! Navigation Bar, or swipe the screen to the right.
Here I Am Now! Street View initially displays the street view of your current location at the time you go to the “Street View” display. You can change the direction of the Street View from 0 degrees to 360 degrees by moving the slider on the Toolbar. As you move the slider, the view direction is indicated. The middle (default) position is 0 degrees, or North. You must press “Refresh” to refresh the Street View display for any new location or change in view direction. If you do not select the view direction, the default Street View direction (usually about 90 degrees) will be displayed. Touching the "View in Maps App" button will open the Apple Maps app to your current location, where you can use the Apple Look Around capability if it is available at that location.
The Here I Am Now! Location Details screen displays latitude, longitude, altitude (feet and meters), address information, speed (mph and km/h), and course (if you are moving). Accuracy of this information is dependent on many factors, including GPS availability, network connectivity, and availability of geocoding information for your current location.
Here I Am Now! can share your Location with friends and family. Press the Sharing icon in the Navigation Bar to share your location. Your location can be shared using Messages, Mail, Twitter, Facebook, and may other services. You can take a photo to include by pressing the camera button, or include any other photo already on your iPhone by pressing "Select". Choose the rear or front camera by pressing "Rear" (or "Front"). Photos taken or selected can be zoomed to crop them before you press "Use Photo" or "Choose". Its that simple to let others know where you are! Note: Some services will use only the photo that you selected, others will use the text message and/or URL of your location to allow others to find you using the Apple Maps App. Most services will send all three items (the photo, the text message, and the URL).
Here I Am Now! includes a capability to change Here I Am Now! default settings and other settings and behaviors from within the App, and not just from the Apple Settings App. The Speedometer selection will take effect immediately. If the speedometer and course displays are distracting in the map view, they can be turned off on the Settings screen. The Default Voice will not take effect until the next time Here I Am Now! is launched to avoid possible confusion with the voice switch on the main Here I Am Now! iPhone screen. This voice switch always overrides the default voice settings.
Voice rate and voice pitch can be adjusted within limits to achieve the best voice intelligibility. The defaults (roughly the centers of the slider range) represent the nominal Apple voice settings. Faster voice settings will result in potentially fewer missed addresses when traveling at a faster rate. Voice pitch changes may result in better intelligibility, especially with some languages. The voice rate and pitch settings are immediate, and will be set as defaults the next time Here I Am Now! is launched.
The bottom section of the Settings screen allows you to select languages other than the default system language for the spoken voice. The choices are English, British, Spanish (Mexican) and French. Once selected, these voices will be used, unless changed, until Here I Am Now! is launched again.
Here I Am Now! has been updated to include localizations for Spanish and French. All displays have been localized to these two languages. The displayed address is dependent upon the reverse geocoding data received for the current locale. Spoken house and street numbers will be spoken in the default language or language selected. For the localized Spanish and French languages, certain common words such as direction (North, South, East, West, North East, South East, North West and South West) and common street designations such as Street, Avenue, and Boulevard, are translated to the default localized language for speech.
The Here I Am Now! Watch App will operate independently of the iPhone with watchOS 6 or later, but can take advantage of iPhone connectivity if the iPhone is available. This is especially useful if the Apple Watch is having difficulty establishing an internet connection to receive the reverse geocoding information but the iPhone can receive it. The Watch App checks first to ascertain if reverse geocoding is available on the watch, and uses this information, if it exists, for display of street number, street name and city name, map display, and spoken address. If reverse geocoding is unavailable on the watch, the Watch App then checks if iPhone connectivity is available, and if so uses the iPhone data for display of street number, street name, and city name, as well as spoken address - but continues to use the watch for map display.
Synthesized voice on the Here I Am Now! Watch App is activated by the "Voice" slider on the watch, and is totally independent from the Here I Am Now! iPhone App synthesized voice. Touching the Street Number on the Watch will speak the current street address one time (this only occurs if the address has been updated).
Here I Am Now! includes a preference setting on the iPhone to control whether the Watch App will autorotate the Here I Am Now display when the wrist is turned away from the body. The default setting is now OFF, and the watch display will not autorotate. Some users found the previous implementation with default autorotation confusing. I personally liked the feature because it allowed me to easily show friends the Here I Am Now watch display just by twisting my wrist without having to move my arm unnaturally for them to see an upright image of the display. Now you can have it either way simply by setting the preference. (Note: this feature only works if the iPhone is available - with no iPhone present autorotation will always be OFF).