Originally Posted by jeffcarp

You may not be aware of how to interact with the new Google Maps v7 app. I hope you find the information below helpful. The "workflow" in the new app is actually less screen clicks than before when you use Google Now to start your navigation session. You need to be interacting with Google Now, not Google Maps. That is the reason or your frustration.

1) Activate Google Now (same screen press as hitting old Navigation icon)
2) Say "Navigate to....in (or near)......" (Exactly the same as before)
3) Look at the screen. If it got your destination right, watch the "timer line" scroll across the screen. (Better than old version which only gave you a text list of the search result, not a map too).
4) Do nothing if it got it right. The "timer line" will finish and a navigation session will automatically start using the best route.

With the new version, if voice recognition successfully returned your desired destination, you have the original single screen click that was necessary to start Google Now and then have nothing more required of you to start a navigation session. That is an improvement over the old version, not a detriment. This also works for your Home and Work destination definitions. Tell Google Now "Navigation Home" and you're done.

You need to start your navigation session from the Maps app instead of Google Now, ONLY if you want to see the 3 route choices, want to browse/zoom the map or for some reason want to review the search results in more detail than they are presented in Google Now.

Google Now is your "one-click" interface to Google Maps Navigation now. The need for a separate Google Navigation icon is obsolete.

I completely agree that Google hasn't been detailed enough about the functionality of some of the products they release, including Google Maps 7 and how it works with Google Now. But the functionality is there and it is a big improvement over the previous version. You just have to play with it for awhile.

Within Google Now you can also use the "Show me a map of....in (or near)...." functionality and then start a navigation session from those results as well. That method however, requires more screen clicks, both in Google Now and in Google Maps before navigation is started.

I hope this helps you. Once you learn how to interact with this app through Google Now, I think your opinion of it will change.