So here is my evaluation of ABRP. It's strange, because my experience differs so greatly, especially from
@hgmichna's experience in not getting the app to "safely" use Tesla's telematics API (although maybe the concern is "safe"--I don't have any serious concerns with generating a Tesla API token and passing that to ABRP, but maybe
@hgmichna does). It really is great to have the app learn my own personal consumption/efficiency and dynamically read the current SOC from my car, so I consider this a key feature. Sure, it works without it, but it's tons better with it.
And I'm also surprised by
@Watts_Up 's difficulty in setting departure times. Other's have described how it's done, so hopefully that is helpful. I use this feature all the time at waypoints when I am setting up a trip. For example, I just had an entire 10 day trip mapped out in ABRP. I had a planned stopover at my son's house on the first day, so I put in my noon departure time, let it calculate the arrival time at his house, then I put in a 9:00am departure time the next morning with 1kW (120V) charging and let it automatically figure out how much charge I would get overnight and use that as part of the plan the next day. Similarly I put in an overnight charge at my in-laws the next night, followed by an 80 mile side trip the following day, arriving back at my in-laws. This was important so that ABRP could accurately estimate how long I needed to charge at the Supercharger preceding my arrival at my in-laws so that I would have enough charge to make it to my in-laws, make the 80 mile side trip, and then make it back to my in-laws to plug into their 120V outlet again. That part always works great for me.
One other nicety of having the app access the Tesla API is that as it is charging, I can be monitoring the next leg of the trip as the car is charging. So for example, if I had to unplug now, would I still have a viable trip? How would my trip be affected if I did that? Not a critical feature, but gives you a warm fuzzy to know that you can at least make it to the first Supercharger in case the power goes out or something.
But yes, I do most of this planning on my desktop. But the nice thing is that when I load up the app, most of the time it just brings up the same plan I've been working on in the app on my phone as well, so I can plan on the desktop. That's may just be me though--I don't like using my phone for anything detailed like that.
I do find that at times, especially when on the road and in an area with a less than ideal signal, when you click on certain things, you have to be a bit patient. While ABRP is pretty responsive on the desktop, it's not so much on the phone, and definitely not on the car browser. It usually eventually responds to clicks, but you have to be patient.
Speaking of the car's browser: ABRP doesn't run well on the Tesla browser. It's had its ups and downs over time. It used to work great. Now it almost always crashes after 20-30 minutes. I don't know if this is ABRP or the browser that's the problem, but it basically renders it useless. What I liked about using it in the browser in the car is that with the detailed view, you get a (better) version of the trip energy graph, and indication of the upcoming charging stop's Supercharger utilization (i.e. how many stalls are in use vs. free -- I like to keep an eye on this to see if it's filling or emptying), and much more detailed arrival and travel times than the Tesla nav gives you). However, I agree that the ABRP navigation map is very bad. I basically ignore that.
So as a result, I usually run ABRP on my phone while in the car to keep an eye on the next Supercharger, although I'll occasionally pop the browser up as well (it usually recovers well enough that it accurately shows where I am on the current trip, but occasionally it gets "confused" and I need to "replan"). I always have Tesla nav running as well, at least to the next Supercharger, so that I can get the in-car nav working, and pre-conditioning the battery.
Another feature I use is the Alternatives feature. Usually this comes up when we need to stop earlier than recommended for a bathroom or food break. It's great to see what other options there are and how they affect the overall trip time.
Speaking of that, the OP was asking about shorter vs. longer stops. Yes, ABRP typically recommends many short stops, but this is actually what you want most of the time. It may seem counter-intuitive, but because you get so much faster charging at low SOC, you generally want to avoid overstaying a Supercharger stay any more than you need to to arrive at the next stop with a fairly low SOC. So it is usually more time efficient to take more shorter stops than just a few longer ones. It does take getting off and on the highway into account, and you can even program in an additional "overhead" time to account for extra time searching for the Supercharger and actually plugging in/unplugging.
I'll probably think of additional tips after I hit "post", but I guess that's enough for now.