The truth is that navigation apps are not really designed to give you a larger sense of your route but rather just what you need to do to get to the next turn.

The truth is that navigation apps are not really designed to give you a larger sense of your route but rather just what you need to do to get to the next turn. Partially this is due to the relatively small size of smartphone screens but it is often actually actively difficult to zoom out or scroll ahead while in navigation mode. It's so focused on the details that you miss the big picture. What if you made a different kind of navigation app, one that was designed to help you learn the streets as your travel? It could teach your about the main freeways and arterial roads. It could monitor your driving and give you points when you successfully reach your destination without turn-by-turn "hints" (though it would be ready to help you out if you got too off-course). Granted, I'm not sure how big a market there would be for kind of app, but I'd love to try it. I think it'd be an interested experiment at the very least.