First of all, let me say that I am amazed by cycle.travel, it's been helping me plan out routes, I love the fact that it's using OSM in the back and that I can contribute to it and the routes it auto generates are wonderful.
I live in Slovenia and my phone (iOS)'s voice reading is not very good at reading the street names around here, I also don't have a phone holder on my bike for saftey reasons and as I want to avoid looking at the screen when I'm biking, however I still want the navigation sometimes, so I am quite frequently using the audio navigation the app offers.
The app often reads out street names and I find this problematic for two reasons:
1. Apple's text reader is horrible at pronouncing slovenian street names, especially those that include šžč.
2. When I'm in an unfamiliar part of town or country it makes it hard to follow the instructions and where I should go. Say that I'm reaching an intersection of a main road and two minor roads like here (https://cycle.travel/map?lat=45.9609&lon=14.5187&zoom=17). I'm riding on Litijska cesta and the app tells me to "turn to Hruščeva cesta", here I can't know if that means turn left or if it means turns right.
This is the intersection on streetview: https://www.google.com/maps/@46.0477982,14.54341,3a,76.3y,282.74h,83.99t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sgQ4OX84KKuf5Z4G_YLQBVg!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D6.009056394287498%26panoid%3DgQ4OX84KKuf5Z4G_YLQBVg%26yaw%3D282.73970087849005!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDQwMS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
As you can see there are no signs detonating the street names, usually they are written below the house numbers (which can sometimes be confusing to find), but the practice of signing street names like in eg. germany is not common here unless you are in the city center.
I noticed that sometimes, the app does say "turn left/right" or "turn to the minor road", however I don't know what the key for when that happens is (i'm assuming it's when the name data is missing?), therefore I would propose that a toggle in the settings would allow the use to change if they want the app to read out street names.
In my use case it would greatly increase the usability of audio navigation on an already fantastic app.
Comments
Brin, I can't imagine relying solely on voice commands particularly since accents are so parochial. Does any electronic device 'speak' in Slovenian? Is the traffic such that looking at a screen is so very difficult? I use cue sheets and find no difficulty in glancing at the cues as I cycle through dense urban areas. One develops a 'second sight' ability to navigate whilst cycling and I suggest you might find it possible to overcome any reluctance to refer to the screen when needs must. Good luck. You live in a wonderful country.