No matter what settings I opt my 2015 does exactly what Jeff describes in original post, very frustrating.

 

I spent yesterday riding most of the day and played with setting options. Here are my observations using 1.21.2.1 software:

North Up

Initially weird watching the cycle icon and roads reorient themselves as you travel. For example, you are traveling east and the screen shows the cycle and road you are on going left to right. Intersecting roads are vertical. Once you get used to it, I found it extremely accurate and less unnerving. It was interesting to see how the perspective changes zooming in and out. On a very positive note, the road signs are all readable. The text does not rotate. Some riders may find the north up setting to be their preference, especially if you find the sweet spot zooming in and out.

Heading Up

The compass screen and the status bar found at the bottom of many screens were always in agreement regarding the direction of travel. As the pointer icon on the map screen was often not in agreement, I created this cheat sheet as my contact with the MoCo was less than satisfying to resolve this issue.

On the map screen, when the red of the red/silver pointer is up, you are traveling north.
When the red is pointing down, you are traveling south.
When the red is pointing left, you are traveling east.
When the red is pointing right, you are traveling west. This addresses the cardinal points.

For the intermediate points, when the red is pointing northeast, you are traveling northwest.
When the red is pointing northwest, you are traveling northeast.
When the red is pointing southwest, you are traveling southeast.
When the red is pointing southeast, you are traveling southwest.

With heading up, the roads look conventional and the cycle icon is always oriented up so it does retain the familiar look. If you keep the heading up appearance, just remember the cheat sheet observations. Confirmation of heading can always be found on many of the other screens.

 

Yes, they changed the that needle to actually work like a real compass in one of the past software updates.
When the boom system was first released, that needle worked as direction indicator, but a lot of people complained about it.

So, one of the software updates reprogrammed that indicator to actually work just a s real compass (Red end of needle always pointing North).
That satisfied those that complained, and at the same time upset all those users that liked it being a direction indicator.

There was a long discussion on this before.

 

There's a compass? Thanks guys!!!..

 

I know if it's not getting enough satellites to triangulate where you are at, it will have problems with your location and directions.

 

True of any GPS.

 

You beat me to it.

 

My toughest obstacle is remembering which end of the needle to refer to.

 

You can always hit the info button for verification of your heading if you forget. But I suspect, now that you understand the behavior, you won't have any problem. (At least, I was confused by that too, but now that I understand....)