TomTom has announced two new high-end GO LIVE devices, the 1000 and 1005. Here follows the press release-

Berlin, 02 September 2010  – TomTom today announces the availability of its high-end GO LIVE range, packed with hot new features and super-charged with HD Traffic™ information. Introducing the TomTom GO LIVE 1000 and TomTom GO LIVE 1005 with larger 13cm (5″) screen.

“Our new flagship GO LIVE 1000 range is the future of driving,” says Damian Woodward, VP sales and marketing at TomTom.  “With functions like a finger-friendly touch screen, HD Traffic information, slick magnetic mount, speedier route calculation and our richest maps yet, these super satnav devices will get drivers to their destination faster, safer and smarter than ever before.”

The fully connected GO LIVE 1000 range has been built for people who love driving, but who hate traffic.  With free HD Traffic™ for a year, drivers now gain access to the most accurate traffic information available, to outsmart the jams and always arrive on time and stress free.

The powerful LIVE Services bundle also includes Speed Cameras, providing mobile and fixed speed camera alerts, helping drivers stay safe and avoid fines, while Local Search with Google™ helps pinpoint shops and businesses in the area. And drivers don’t have to worry about the weather spoiling their plans – this smart device range receives up-to-date local and five-day forecasts courtesy of TomTom Weather.

The GO LIVE 1000 is TomTom’s first device range to feature the capacitive Fluid Touch screen which lets drivers pinch to zoom in and out of maps, or scroll through menus with the tips of their fingers. The screen responds intelligently and sensitively to even the lightest touch, making interaction more responsive than in any of its predecessors.  And combined with an extra-wide touch screen measuring 13cm (5″), the GO 1005 features the clearest view on the road ahead with even easier operation and functionality.

For a quick start to the journey, TomTom has created the new Easy Click magnetic mount.  Docking and undocking is now easier than ever – even with just one hand.  In fact, simply holding the device against the mount glides the TomTom GO LIVE simply into place.

And there’s more: a powerful, super-fast computer processor allows speedier route calculation, while maps with IQ Routes™ use real speed data collected from millions of users to calculate accurate travel and arrival times.  Plus every device comes with new, richer maps covering two million kilometres more roads across 45 European countries and more graphical details.  These include even richer Points of Interest data – including business phone numbers and opening times – putting even more local information at the drivers’ fingertips.

Combining cutting-edge features and enhanced usability, the new TomTom GO LIVE 1000 and 1005 devices really signal the arrival of the “super satnav”.

Availability and pricing
The GO LIVE 1000 will be available in September and the GO LIVE 1005 follows in October.  Pricing is £249.99 (RRP) for the GO LIVE 1000 UK/Republic of Ireland whilst the version with Europe mapping is £279.99.  The GO LIVE 1005 Europe is priced £299.99.

Also announced today was the Via and Via LIVE range of GPS systems-

Berlin, 02 September 2010  TomTom today launches the brand new TomTom Via LIVE, bringing the most accurate traffic information and a more enjoyable driving experience to millions. TomTom Via LIVE comes with enhanced driving features, including full Voice Control and hands-free call answering as standard. Designed for people who love to drive, the device comes fully connected, providing unprecedented live knowledge of the road ahead.

With TomTom HD Traffic™ bundled free for the first year for all customers,
Via LIVE is built to get drivers through traffic quicker than any other traffic service. Moreover drivers can stay ahead with up-to-date speed camera information on both fixed and mobile cameras en route, as well as live weather updates and local Google™ business address searches.

“TomTom Via LIVE is designed to put the pleasure back into driving, with the knowledge of having the most advanced traffic information available, in a smart and simple to use device,” says Damian Woodward, VP sales and marketing at TomTom.  “With Voice Control, we’ve taken the hassle out of navigation and added powerful new features, all of which add up to a more easygoing and enjoyable journey.  Via LIVE users get incredible TomTom innovation at an attractive mid-range price.”

Can it really be true. Brian Blessed directing people all around the country. Nooooo!

The voice of Brian Blessed will soon be bellowing out of your sat nav after a campaign on Facebook attracted over 25,000 members.

Motorist Richard Gardner from Saddleworth, Manchester decided he wanted his driving experience to be shoutier and more beardy. But when he discovered that the king-sized actor’s booming voice was not available on his TomTom sat nav, he decided to set the wheels in motion himself.

Richard launched a Facebook group called “Campaign to get Brian Blessed to do a voice-over for my sat nav” in April 2008, and promptly forgot about it.  In February 2010, he revisited it to find 450 members.  Realising there was some demand for the voice he proceeded to spread the word and within weeks attracted several thousand members.

As the petition gathered momentum, Richard contacted TomTom who said they would open negotiations with Brian Blessed if the group attracted 25,000 supporters.  Richard then approached the big Yorkshireman himself, who agreed to film a campaign video and lend his voice if the target was reached: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JpKuYbJQK4

The group now has 25,772 members and TomTom has confirmed that the Official Shoutsperson of the University of York Douglas Adams Society will also be the new voice of sat nav from October.

“I believe this is the first time that a product has been created through social media,” Gardner said.  “Companies have been spending so much time and money trying to work out how to use Social Media to sell us stuff, I wondered whether it was time they started thinking about using it to ask us what we’d like to buy?”

Perhaps best known for his role as Prince Vultan of the Hawkmen (“Drive, my Hawkmen, Drive…”) in the film Flash Gordon, Brian Blessed will now be able to ’save every one of us’ from getting lost.  It’s not yet known whether he will shriek “Gordon’s arrriiiiiived” when drivers reach their destination.

Damian Woodward, TomTom UK VP sales and marketing said: “Voices are becoming an ever more popular personalisation tool for our sat navs and it’s been an interesting journey watching this particular campaign take shape.  It shows the power of social media, and if we can bring shouty happiness to over 25,000 people who are we to deny it?”

More information about the group can be found at: http://www.facebook.com/BrianSatNav which will continue to be updated with information, videos and competitions ahead of the voice launch.

Brian Blessed is “thrilled to bits”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOicbYFq4C0

Consumers can also post suggestions for voices they’d like to hear on their TomTom sat nav at:
http://twitter.com/uktomtom

The best-selling celebrity voices for TomTom have been Homer Simpson, John Cleese and rapper Snoop Dogg, with Billy Connolly and Darth Vader recently added to the collection.

Brian Blessed is also known for his colourful use of the English language and in the video below he offers his view of the Palm Pilot. Beware- strong language ensues, but the very last comment is perfect-

Let me start this review by explaining why satellite navigation is so important to me. It is a technology that has benefited my life more than many others which are designed to make tasks a little easier and to bring more fun to our down time. Prior to satellite navigation every long journey required lots of map studying, guesswork as to how long each journey would take and the added dangers of continually referring to a map on the passenger seat. And I shouldn’t forget the inconvenience of traffic jams which were a regular occurrence on my journeys; I live 10 minutes from the M25.

It all came to a head one day when my wife and I decided to take our children to a local farm for the day a few years back. It was the middle of Summer and baking hot, but the drive would not be a problem because it was only a 20 minute journey. Because of this I decided not to take my TomTom. Big mistake. We hit some traffic as we turned onto the M25 from the M23 and just sat there. One whole hour later we had moved about fifty feet and as you can imagine I was starting to fear the worst. Considering we only needed to be on the M25 for 1 junction this was getting more than a bit silly.

After about 2 hours nature was calling and I was in a bit of a situation. In desperation I drank the last of the water from the only bottle we had handy and used it as an impromptu (uncomfortable) toilet. At this exact moment the lady in the car in front decided to get out of her vehicle and wander over to us. She leaned down by the window, I pushed the button to open it slightly and exclaimed “For God’s sake. Can’t a man go to the toilet in the privacy of his own car?!?” She walked to the vehicle behind us. It was getting tense in the car by now and the children were bored, irritable and generally annoying to be near. My wife was bored, irritable and generally annoyed to be near me and so we carried on waiting. Incredibly the lady returned to our car, looking very excited, and I wound down the window again. She said “Do you know what’s happened?” Dramatic pause. “There’s been an accident. That’s why we are stuck here!” She beamed at imparting this knowledge onto us. “No sh*t Sherlock! Not for one minute did I think we had been stuck here for 2 hours because of an accident. And there was me thinking it was because of the light rain shower we had this morning. Of course there’s been an accident you stupid woman!” She walked back to her car.

Now, I was feeling quite bad at this point; I needed the toilet again, I was hot and bothered, the kids were crying, I had upset a stranger and my wife was blaming me for deciding to go to the farm in the first place. To cut a long story short we eventually started moving (slowly) after 3.5 hours at which point some people started to use the hard shoulder to make their getaway. Two police cars moved to the hard shoulder to stop them, but then the traffic on the inside lane left a gap, and so we drove as fast as we could through the gap to get to the next junction. I didn’t care that the police were there; after 4 hours I would have sold my house to be free from that awful motorway, the awful baking temperature and the Sunday that should have been a pleasant day out.

If only I had taken my TomTom and used the traffic service. Such a simple thing to do, but I didn’t and our day was ruined. For a year afterwards my son was petrified of getting stuck in long traffic jams, and so was I.

You don’t need to have suffered a traumatic traffic event to need decent navigation and traffic management though because these do offer some advantages you may not have thought about previously. They save time, fuel and hassle and can also make any journey a lot safer. I am a big advocate of satellite navigation and always want the best. The question is, has TomTom managed to create the best iPhone navigation experience on the market?

The list of features included is long indeed and so I will not cover everyone of them, but if you want to know what you get for your money take a look at this page. OK, I will stop talking about myself. It’s time to look at the app itself.

Pricing

Let’s get the pricing out of the way first. At the time of writing TomTom UK & Ireland costs £42.99 on the iTunes app store and the HD Traffic option will set you back £22.99 for a year’s subscription.

Co-Pilot Live UK & Ireland retails for £19.99 plus a further £19.99 for a year’s traffic. NAVIGON MobileNavigator British Isles varies in price, but seems to settle at around £40 plus £14.99 for a year’s traffic, £1.19 to use postcode searching (you what?) and £6.99 for 3D Panorama View. Navmii GPS UK & Ireland costs £19.99 with no traffic option currently available. NDrive was retailing for a crazy price on the App Store until Apple used the infamous kill switch and removed it from people’s devices. I remember asking myself how NDrive could be sold at such a low price when the cost of licensing maps is considered? I guess I now have my answer…

Reference links-

Co-Pilot Live review

Navmii GPS UK & Ireland review

Looking at the above prices the TomTom offering looks expensive and the actual difference comes in at an average of £20 extra if the traffic options are taken. It is an obvious disadvantage in a market that has more consumer users than when GPS software was popular on Windows Mobile, Palm OS and Symbian. Users of older smartphones would pay for the best solution, but the iPhone market is different. Anything over £0.59 can cause complaints and TomTom is taking a different path to the rest at this time which takes some balls. However, this approach mimics the path Apple is making; better quality components will result in a higher price and TomTom’s job is to convince potential consumers that it is offering a better solution. Ultimately I have to judge if TomTom for the iPhone is worthy of the higher price tag when the others offer similar features, at least in the spec sheets.

Setting Up

Installing TomTom is not a process worthy of many words; you buy it from the App Store and it installs. How dull is that? Seriously, this is where the iPhone eco system shines and it’s all over in a matter of minutes. I was surprised at how quickly the app loaded up when I first tapped it; many navigation apps take an age to load, but TomTom is quite swift in this area and it popped up in approximately 4 seconds. The initial screen is a simple map and you may wander what you need to do next. One tap on the map brings up a listed menu which is fairly long; Navigate to, Route options, Mute sound, Day Colours, 2D Map, TomTom Traffic, Advanced planning, Browse map, Help me, Manage favourites, Call POI, TomTom News and Change settings. Many of these options have sub-menus as well which is an indication of just how much is included. If you go to the last option, Change settings, you can delve even deeper, but a tap on Advanced here brings up some hidden settings. They are on/off radio buttons to disable IQ Routes, Traffic, GPS Enhancer and Lane Images- my tip is to leave them all set to ‘on’ because they make a big difference to the overall routing experience.

Some of the menu options are ordered in a strange way which is a little hard to fathom at first. For example, with the ‘Navigate to’ option searching by Postcode is 8th in the list which is bizarre to me. I would say that postcode searching is very popular and should be near the top, but the options here are as complete as you will find elsewhere in the software. You can find destinations in almost any possible way; by contact, POI, coordinates, points on a map, Google local search and the list goes on and on. It is impressively complete and so far has proved very reliable for me. The one area of concern are the points of interest which are on the whole accurate, but at other times way out. I remember searching for a Pizza place in Co-Pilot while sat 100 feet away from my local Pizza Hut- it came up with the nearest one being 16 miles away. On TomTom I tried a search by POI (can’t remember what for, but there was one locally) and I was offered a POI in Paris, France! POIs are historically a bit hit and miss on all navigation systems so I am not overly concerned about this particularly because the Google Local Search works so well.

I won’t go further into the menu options because it would start to get boring, but I will say that the options are incredibly complete and, on the whole, logically set out once you are used to the occasional quirk. One option I liked was the ability to share a route- simply tap the menu options and a detailed list and map will be emailed to the contact of your choice. Within this email is a link to open the route in TomTom- clever stuff and potentially very useful.

The First Trip

Once I had input my destination I was ready to test TomTom out properly. It was a 100 mile trip from Crawley to Bournemouth on a Friday evening which is notorious for traffic issues and so I expected problems. I decided to follow the route exactly as TomTom wanted me to and was surprised by the results.

On more than one occasion we ended up on different roads to ones we have used before in the many, many times we have driven to Bournemouth and it seemed as though the IQ Routes system was working well. It took some time for me to adjust to the way roundabouts and turnings are displayed on the screen; at first it appears as though you have a long way to travel before a turning, but the screen will show a short distance. This is at odds with every other system I have used, including standalone TomTom units, but after a couple of trips the benefits became clear- it offers an incredibly accurate view of where you are and when you need to turn which is especially useful in busy areas.

An alert popped up on the HD Traffic bar advising that there was a 2 minute delay 69 miles ahead. 2 minutes? There was no way on Earth it could be that precise, but sadly I did not get the chance to test it on my first trip because the delay had disappeared by the time we got there. As it happens the trip was traffic free and all in all I was very impressed with the way TomTom managed alerts, safety cameras and directions. Alerts were offered which included place and street names and this simple addition makes a big difference when you are travelling through a town for the first time. The selection of voices are also very natural and at no point did I have trouble understanding what was being said. All in all my first experience of using TomTom on the iPhone offered a glimpse of what to expect, and I was now expecting great things.

HD Traffic

The HD Traffic claims to be the best in the business and so I plumped down a further £23 to test it out. After some time with Co-Pilot I have started to lose confidence in the system because of a few recent times when it alerted me to traffic which moved away hours before and another time when I got stuck for over an hour with no warning at all.

The day after my first trip I had a chance to test it and the results were remarkable. During a short journey we were alerted to a 5 minute delay in 0.70 miles. This was a surprise to me because every other traffic system I have used has ignored towns and only managed to monitor motorways and A roads. Anyway, we reached the point of delay and there it was- a stream of traffic in front of us. As we moved along the delay dropped consistently down to 3 minutes and then eventually to 1 minute. We sat in the traffic and I said to my children, jokingly, that the traffic would be gone in 10 seconds. The traffic disappeared after 12 seconds (bad TomTom- 2 seconds out) and we were on our way again. This was a little bit weird to me because this level of traffic management is science fictions to anyone who has used other systems, but it has happened time after time since in my testing. It is not always as accurate as the above example, but the most it has been wrong so far was by 1.5 minutes during a particularly troublesome M25 trip.

TomTom HD Traffic has, so far, performed way ahead of my expectations and is as accurate as is possible with such a free flowing problem as traffic. I already have the utmost confidence in it and it is easily worth the extra £23. A remarkable service.

On The Road Again

In the past two weeks I have undertaken multiple trips using TomTom on an iPhone 4 and to date have not suffered any issues at all. The traffic service is exceptional and the routing has been spot on. Bristol is a town that causes much confusion on many navigation systems, but this version of TomTom handled it with ease. It’s useful in any review to find problems, but I admit to struggling here.

One feature that worked particularly well is the music integration. Using it with an FM Radio tuner, I found the onscreen controls easy to use and the blend of instructions and music to work well albeit with some disturbance on some channels. It is difficult to judge exactly how well a solution like this works because I was using a low quality FM transmitter, but the experience was interesting and from a software point of view, the TomTom music integration worked very well.

Conclusion

I expected this review to be much longer, but I hit a roadblock (excuse the pun) when it came to describing performance. The features are all in place and the traffic system is brilliant so that only leaves performance to take up the bulk of the words. The problem I found was that I never lost signal once, turnings had no delays and all audible instructions were clear and timed perfectly. Every part of every route was accurate and it felt like coming home to an old friend.

From my very first experience of GPS I used TomTom for many years and only recently moved to Co-Pilot because I was offered a review copy which stunned me with its quality. As time wore on, however, I noticed a few small glitches and so decided to try TomTom once again.

No product is perfect, that is impossible. However, when I compare this app to the other navigation solutions available for the iPhone platform and even to standalone GPS systems I struggle to see where it could improve. It is a remarkably complete piece of software that has been designed with the user in mind every step of the way. I wouldn’t change anything about it…

Available from iTunes for £42.99.

BlackBerry is the mobile platform of choice for business. It is by far the best communicator, the hardware has the best keyboards, great battery lives and is just perfect for day to day business. It may not be fashionable or have billions of third party apps, but it is functional and almost perfectly suited to its intended market.

With this intended market in mind I continually wonder why there is no top class GPS solution available for BlackBerry devices. Business people need to travel, and often times many thousands of miles a year. The companies that buy these BlackBerry smartphones for their employees would benefit greatly from decent satellite navigation for each of their BlackBerry totting people, but still the likes of TomTom, ALK and the rest have gone nowhere near the platform.

I have spoken to some people and there is no technical reason why the later BlackBerry devices running OS5.0 cannot run a full GPS software solution. The screens, hardware and everything else about these smartphones is suited to GPS, but still the major players are reluctant to jump on board.

I can only presume that they do not see a big enough market for such solutions, but I struggle to understand how that could possibly be so. The potential market is HUGE! It truly is, but still we BlackBerry users wait in the hope that something will one day be made for the platform.

For power BlackBerry users who have their devices by their sides all day long, this is one area that would complete the functionality and stop them lugging around a separate unit. Do any of you know why the big boys don’t want to play in this market?

Sorry to overdo the iPhone news, but I just received the following press release from TomTom. Check out the bit in red-

London – June 4, 2010 – TomTom will introduce multitasking to the TomTom app for iPhone. Its next version, which will be compatible with iOS 4, will be submitted to Apple for review after the June 21 release of iOS 4. Among the new features available in TomTom app for iPhone, will be support for multitasking functionality*, allowing users to get turn-by-turn guidance at the same time as operating other applications. 

The current version of the TomTom app for iPhone (version 1.3) is available for purchase via the App Store, and both current and new owners of the app will be able to update to the new version immediately upon its availability for no additional charge. As an additional incentive for new users to start using the application, TomTom is currently offering the UK& Ireland and Western Europe versions of the app at a discounted price of £54.99 and £42.99 respectively.

Following the success of the recent promotion, TomTom is also making its award-winning HD Traffic service available to users at a new price that will make avoiding the jams that much easier. Beginning today, a 12-month subscription for TomTom HD Traffic is now offered on the TomTom app at £22.99. With TomTom HD Traffic, TomTom app users receive real-time traffic speed updates and incident reports continuously. As soon as any delay is found on the route, users are notified and can be automatically re-routed to an alternate, faster route. TomTom HD Traffic is an optional service available via in-app purchase.

“As TomTom continues to innovate and to take advantage of new capabilities of the iOS 4, users of the TomTom app will benefit from the combination of TomTom’s most advanced and acclaimed features and the iPhone’s unique functionality,” said Tom Murray, senior vice president of market development for TomTom Inc. “We are pleased to integrate multitasking capabilities to the newest version of our TomTom app, and to be able to ensure that users can now enjoy other iPhone features while they continue to receive the best routing directions from their TomTom application.”

*Available on iPhone 3GS and iPod Touch 3rd Generation devices, running iOS 4.

The iPhone GPS software market is getting crowded these days with all of the big names looking to dominate. Navmii is the latest name to enter the market and has immediately thrown down the gauntlet by offering the UK & Ireland version for just £19.99. Also available are a range of titles which cover specific states in the US which is a clever marketing technique for those travelling to a particular area and at £7.49 you are not risking a lot. Here is a quick rundown of the features included in the app-

Easy-to-use complete satellite navigation for your iPhone & iPod touch
Clear, easy to read maps for all devices (iPhone 2G & iPod Touch 2G also supported)
Complete Onboard solution – No Monthly fees & No Data charges
Option of viewing the map in either 2D, 3D or a safety screen
Fast route calculation and automatic re-routing should you miss a turn
Voice and visual turn-by-turn route guidance
Constantly update information about your journey: Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) and distance to destination
Speed limit warnings both on safety screen and map
Day/Night mode
1000’s of POI included

As you can see, all of the basics are covered that we expect to see in a GPS app in 2010. Those who require traffic may be dismissive, but the reliability of such features is often brought into question so it makes more sense to look at what navmii does, and more importantly how well it does it.

For those that need a basic navigation solution, Navmii will serve them perfectly well, but for those who want something more sophisticated it passes that line as well. It is rare to find a navigation solution that manages to fill the budget market and the more lucrative high-end market yet still keep the price nearer the budget side.

The interface is easy to view and works well in busy and sparse areas, but does lack the professionalism of TomTom and Co-Pilot. This may be a bias on my part because I am so used to the more expensive solutions and when I thought long about this I realised that it displays the roads around me very well indeed and thus I am most likely being far too harsh. The seed camera pop ups are clear and pushed off to allow the main view space and the way in which the data you need is ordered on screen feels natural after your first couple of trips. The various route views are useful, but I must admit to rarely moving away from the traditional 3D view on any system.

The menus are easy to use with large buttons that are a snip to tap in a hurry, but again the overuse of colours gives the impression of a solution that is less professional than it actually is. The fact is that Navmii includes a huge variety of options and the interface could be simplified to demonstrate that fact the first time you look at it.

The main focus of a navigation app should of course be navigation though and this is where Navmii really surprised me. I drove from Crawley to Manchester using Co-Pilot and was taken on my usual route which means a lot of hassle as I reach Manchester city centre. The next week I had to take the same journey again, but this time used Navmii. Everything was the same until I reached the outskirts of Manchester and 15 minutes was chopped off my journey. I am not good with locations and roads, hence my dire need for GPS, but in a number of tests Navmii has taken me on different routes which on the whole involved much less hassle.

The spoken directions are timely, but not as clearly spoken as some other solutions and the speed of calculation for long journeys is super quick. Points of interest are easy to find and they seem to be comparable to competing solutions. All in all I have struggled to find any major issues with Navmii GPS so far.

It claims to work with the iPod Touch using G-Fi which is currently on sale at $99, but this appears to be a US only product at the time. I must say that the way the app is displayed on iTunes could do with some re-wording to make it ‘very’ clear that you need to buy G-Fi to use an iPod Touch with Navmii.

When I consider the options available in Navmii and the performance it is up there with some of the best. When I consider the price, it heralds a new dawn for navigation software. It is a huge bargain at under £20 and should suit the needs of most iPhone owning drivers.

More details at www.navmii.com

I received a press release yesterday from TomTom about the latest celebrity navigation voice and immediately discounted it- Darth Vader?. I don’t really like celebrity GPS voices because they get annoying after 5 minutes, and then I spotted the video below. Hilarious! More details are available at http://www.tomtom.com/starwars.

There is little doubt that the iPad version of Co-Pilot Live looks brilliant, but I have to ask where exactly in my car I can put it?

CoPilot Live HD makes complete use of the iPad’s large touch screen in portrait or landscape, displaying the route ahead clearly and with beautiful hi-resolution graphics. The split screen navigation view uses the 768 x 1024 screen real estate to maximum effect—combining uncluttered 3D or 2D map views with clear, non-distracting turn instructions. Four dual view options available.

With CoPilot Live HD, you don’t have to download maps for each trip or worry about being left stranded without maps in mobile dead spots. CoPilot Live stores detailed street level maps of the U.S. and Canada directly on the iPad 3G—allowing offline GPS navigation and comprehensive trip planning. Free MapSure map improvements and updates keep your CoPilot Live current with changes in the road network.

More than just voice-guided, turn-by-turn navigation. CoPilot Live HD’s powerful offline trip planning and route preview features let you plan complete door-to-door itineraries on your iPad 3G before you hit the road. You can enter multiple stops for a single journey and optimize to calculate the most efficient route. Additional features include a fuel cost estimator and the ability to create customized routing profiles for your personal preferences.

TomTom and ALK are using the World Cup to launch new products and in TomTom’s case, an unbelievable offer is available.

From the whole press release, this is the bit you need to read- “Those who buy a GO550, GO750 and GO950 in the run-up to the tournament will be able to claim the full cost of the device back, should England win the final.” You also need to know that England will not win the World Cup… Ho hum.

ALK has released Co-Pilot Live 8 for South Africa with claims that it will get you to hotels, airports and the stadiums for the World Cup.

“Available for iPhone, Android smartphones or Windows Phone, CoPilot Live provides full turn-by-turn voice-guided navigation in-car or on foot. Detailed street maps of South Africa are stored on the phone, so there’s no need to rely on the mobile network for navigation and no risk of incurring huge roaming bills for downloading maps.

With matches for the forthcoming tournament spread between several cities over considerable distances (approximately 1,500 miles for the England team’s first 3 games alone), many fans will have the chance to explore the stunning scenery and sights throughout South Africa.”

The recent changes in the GPS market mark a stark contrast to the navigation scene as recent as a year ago. We had a market dominated by standalone systems which were prevelant on any motorway and a quick drive would often show more than half the cars with a GPS unit stuck on the windscreen, usually right in the middle as well which is a daft place to put it.

Software solutions have of course been available on operating systems as diverse as Symbian, Windows Mobile andeven Palm OS for a long time as well, but like so much else in the mobile market the iPhone changed things a great deal. We now have fully fledged GPS solutions retailing for under £20 and most solutions available now offer as much, if not more, than the standalone systems which have dominated the market for so long. As the general public starts to accept that mobile phones are no longer just for voice and texts they will gradually come around to the idea of installing one piece of software and saving themselves a whole bundle of money.

It is ironic that TomTom who has long pioneered sofware GPS solutions is now more suseptable to this shift than any other company and must have a fairly negative view of the future. The irony comes from the fact that TomTom started off by producing PDA navigation software (Psion) and grew incredibly quickly to dominate the consumer hardware GPS market.

The whole industry has changed to the point that developers can use maps at a price point which no longer ensures high pricing to the customer, and Google has taken the idea even further. With the potential for free turn-by-turn navigation on the horizon for most Android phones this hits the likes of TomTom even harder. As if that were not enough, Nokia has taken it to a new level and now offers lifetime navigation on phones costing less than £100. I am personally not a fan of Ovi Maps, but for people who need GPS occasionally, most people, it represents a ‘too good to be true’ option.

How can the companies who sell millions of standalone units and paid for software solutions every year fight back? They can’t unless they start making products which can include GPS as a loss leader, and the likes of ALK are likely not in a positions to do that. Garmin-Asus is the only example I can think of at this time, but can we really expect to see a TomTom phone on the horizon? In theory TomTom has the capability and the money to do so, and it is likely the only choice it has.

The direction that GPS has taken in the past month has surpised many of us and now things have changed again. There is little doubt that a price war is underway and that we could end up with a completely free market one day, which may or may not be a bad thing…

Firstly, MapQuest 4 Mobile for the iPhone by AOL now includes voice guidance for free alongside the introduction of off-route assistance for getting back on track. The system is fairly basic, but can be considered advanced for a free solution.

TomTom has announced lifetime mapping and traffic updates for some North American standalone GPS units. This is obviously an effort to put some spark back into this market because I suspect the iPhone is doing some damage to TomTom’s core business.

TomTom is also releasing new standalone units in the UK at the budget end of the market. The XL Navigation has been released with XL IQ Routes and starts at just £139 for a 4.3″ screened unit. The Start2 comes in at just £119 and includes advanced lane guidance and RDS-TMC traffic compatibility.

I don’t know where this is going to go over the next year, but standalone units could face the biggest competition they ever have from the likes of Android, the iPhone, Nokia Maps and Windows Mobile. That’s a long list to contend with…

This is clever. Bluesky positioning has been working with Telemap to bring GPS to ‘any’ GSM mobile phone. It is a brilliant idea, but maybe one that would have a much bigger market 2 years ago.

The full press release is here (PDF)- London, UK and Sophia Antipolis, France – March 18, 2010 – Telmap, the global leader in mobile location solutions and BlueSky Positioning, a pioneer of A-GPS for the SIM card industry, jointly announced today a cooperation to bring for the first time ever, real-time search, mapping and navigation to mobile phones, with A-GPS SIM. This cooperation showcases the ability of BlueSky Positioning’s A-GPS technology to incorporate navigation onto mobile phones which lack integral GPS capabilities.

BlueSky Positioning’s A-GPS technology, embedded into a phone’s SIM card, together with Telmap’s search, mapping and navigation solution enable effortless on-the-go experience, including excellent in-car navigation sessions with 3D moving maps, multi-lingual turn-by-turn directions with street names using text-to-speech, as well as traffic and speed camera information (where available). Telmap’s solution also includes unique pedestrian navigation, guiding users through pedestrian-only areas such as parks, squares, passages, and stairs, tracking user’s progress as they walk. The Telmap – BlueSky Positioning cooperation allows (smart and) mid-range phone users to access real-time location information without the need to invest in location-aware hardware. The full, comprehensive set of LBS features provided by Telmap’s Location Companion works seamlessly with BlueSky Positioning’s A-GPS location technology to provide accurate, instant location data and information.

Ronen Soffer, CTO at Telmap, commented, “In utilizing BlueSky’s innovation, Telmap can introduce its LBS and Navigation solution to a larger addressable market, which now includes new consumer segments and a multitude of mid-range mobile phones. This helps further realizing Telmap’s strategy of mass market reach for its services, while boosting Operators’ business case as well as control over distribution and customer ownership of such services.”

Vodafone is going to kill off its Wayfinder service due to competitive pressure from Nokia and Google. Here are some select quotes from Mobile Industry Review- “Due to the huge competitive pressure generated by the market entry of Nokia and the upcoming launch of Google navigation, Vodafone is proposing to close down Wayfinder…” “We could not charge for something that others gave away for free…”

Ewan over at MIR agrees with this decision, but to me it could be shortsighted. I understand that Nokia and Android phones form a large part of Vodafones sales, but what about the other phones they sell? The millions of other phones? One way to compete with free is to make your own service free and use it to drag customers through the door. It’s as good a loss leader as I can think of.

A new beta of Ovi Maps is now available (3.04) which brings a few tweaks to improve the performance and positioning. This is fast becoming one of Nokias main weapons and of course it is still free.

“We are pleased to introduce you to the new Beta release of Ovi Maps for mobile (v3.04) and have made a few tweaks to improve the performance and positioning.

Download the new Ovi MapsBeta for mobile (v3.04) from Nokia Beta Labs and please let us know what you think in the discussion forums and surveys.”

A new TomTom car holder has been launched which claims to offer the user a better view than previously. The other point to remember is the continuin debate as to whether it is legal to clip a GPS unit (or anoything else) to a windscreen- this is one solution.

“London, 19 February 2010 – TomTom today transforms in-car iPhone navigation with its latest car kit for iPhone. Designed to securely integrate iPhone into your car, this is the must-have accessory for fans of iPhone and TomTom for iPhone.

The original TomTom car kit for iPhone has a windscreen mount. The new car kit for iPhone, however, screws onto a vehicle-specific ProClip mount that is fixed on the driver’s dashboard. This lets drivers choose a permanent location that works best for them, with no need to reposition it for each journey.

“This car kit for iPhone is designed with demanding drivers in mind,” explains Tom Murray, vice president of market development. “It offers the fastest, neatest way to secure iPhone into a car. Plus they get all the features of the original TomTom car kit for iPhone, for the best in-car experience.”

The new car kit broadens the TomTom for iPhone range, with features that further improve the in-car navigation experience for iPhone users. They include a GPS booster for uninterrupted navigation – even in built-up areas. The built-in microphone allows drivers to make and answer phone calls safely while driving, whilst an integrated speaker ensures navigation instructions are always clear. These features are vital to help busy drivers get to the right place safely.

An in-car charger keeps the driver’s iPhone battery topped up while on the go – essential for staying in touch with clients and colleagues. For an even neater integration, drivers can contact their garage for a direct power connection to their car battery.

Time to unwind? The kit also comes with an audio out connector that lets drivers play their favourite music over their car stereo*. It even fades music out when receiving phone calls or navigation instructions.”