TomTom Releases iPhone Navigation App

andylim writes "Today TomTom released its long-awaited iPhone app that allows you to use your iPhone 3G and 3GS as a GPS navigation device. Recombu.com tested it out on video this morning and concluded that it works well but if you receive a call while you're driving then the app does cut out — it will restart once you've finished the conversation. The app costs £60 for the UK & Ireland version, £80 for western Europe, £45 for Australia and £60 for the US and Canada."

What's the point?

[Blakey Rat]

This differs from the built-in Google Maps... how?

There's no pitch here, just a claim that it adds a feature iPhones already had!

Will there be an adroid version?

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

I am not going to get vendor locked in to iPhone. Will there be a Android version available from Tom Tom or one of its competitors?

You're kidding me.

[fahrvergnugen]

Wow, this is a crap deal. How disappointing. Why is the app is 1.2GB in size, when the iPhone is designed as an always-on device? A $30 1GB app with paid map downloads on demand, instead of storing the entire USA on the phone at once, would make much more sense. I agree that streaming maps (such as the google maps app) are useless if you're in the sticks with no coverage or Edge-only coverage, but giving up over 1/8th or 1/16th of my total storage for maps I won't use 99% of the time is a terrible compromise. if I could install map packs based on my travel plans, that would make much more sense. And $100 for the USA, when I can buy a standalone TomTom 125 for $80? Unless the $100 app has feature parity with the $400 standalone units, the only conclusion I can come to is that they are trying to incentivise people away from using the iPhone app, and toward buying a dedicated GPS unit instead. I can think of no other excuse. Bad form, guys. I hope someone sees the market opportunity and steals your cake.

receiving a call is the biggest complaint?

[horatio]

but if you receive a call while you're driving then the app does cut out -- it will restart once you've finished the conversation

My Garmin, when connected to my phone (any phone, not just iPhone) via bluetooth does exactly the same thing. It supresses the nav prompts until you complete the call. I don't understand why this is a complaint? Especially for this particular situation since you're running this app on a PHONE whose primary purpose is to receive CALLS. Or have I missed something obvious?

No, because TFA actually says "For those of you wondering what happens when you get a call, the app turns off but restarts as soon as you finish the call, so it's not too bad."

Re:What's the point?

[aardwolf64]

1.) No turn-by-turn
2.) No voice routing
3.) Most important - No offline storage of maps.

If you dare go somewhere without cellphone service, you'll quickly find that the streets disappear in Google Maps... That's because it loads the map as needed over your cellphone data connection.

Re:You're kidding me.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm, you are missing the whole point of a 1.2 GB download (less if you don't want the entire Europe for example) which is that you don't have to download it everytime you go somewhere (even with some form of caching), even when you don't have a 3G/EDGE connection... You don't want to pay for it everytime either (not everybody has free & open wifi access points everywhere, especially in Europe).

Re:You're kidding me.

[PhilHibbs]

I disagree - having map data in poor signal areas is valuable, and also international data roaming charges are pretty horrendous. I didn't use my iPhone for sat nav while in France the last two weeks for the latter reason.

WinMo

[Anonymous Coward]

They've had a Windows Mobile version of Tom Tom for quite a while now.

Re:Prices

[chrisbtoo]

Why are all the prices in British Pounds? Did they just annex all those countries overnight or is the author of the article a lazy bastard?

The prices are in British Pounds, because the linked article is on a UK website. The author of the article is someone who is reporting the news to people in his country of origin. Congratulations on discovering that there's an entire world outside your country's borders!

Pricing

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm.. I can pay $100 for the iPhone app, or for $59.99 I can get the whole unit. I'll stick with the actual TomTom.

Price Fail

[njfuzzy]

TomTom missed the boat on this app. You can buy a new TomTom device for $99. Why would I pay the same to add software to a device that I already paid for? I would have bought this if it came out at $50 for the software, or $99 for the software plus the hardware accessory kit. At $99 for the software alone, I will pass.

Complaints

[jbrayton]

There are many complaints here that I don't agree with:

With regard to the price and competing GPS apps: I have a TomTom GPS device that I bought a couple years ago. I paid about $200 and it has been worth every penny. If I didn't already have that device, I would buy the $99 iPhone app in a heartbeat. Yes, there are cheaper GPS apps, and I honestly don't know how most of them compare. I did buy a GPS app last week for $2 or $3. Considering the price I'd say it was good. But it doesn't compare to my TomTom at all; I deleted it. The Google Maps app is also nice, but it doesn't provide turn-by-turn directions while driving. TomTom is doing the smart thing and charging based on the value of the app.

With regard to the size of the app: I can understand the complaints. But (I think) the storage sizes on phones that will run this range between 8GB and 32GB. 1GB is a significant, but not huge, chunk of that. Phone storage sizes will only increase. I don't want to get lost because my phone can't reach the map server; storying 1GB of map data on the phone seems perfectly reasonable.

If you don't want it, don't need it, or can't justify the price, then don't buy it. But I think this will be a worthwhile app for many people.

Re:Typical.....

[babyrat]

Apple users will pay double for an app with functionality that we've had on our Blackberries for years.

That may or may not be the case in general, however in this particular instance, $99 to buy the App seems significantly cheaper than $9.99/month that the TeleNav app on your blackberry costs. Well they do offer a discount - $99/yr or $249 for a 4 year plan.

I can't believe those blackberry users will pay $10 /month for a GPS App that I can buy on my iPhone for only $100.

Re:Prices

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

No, it wouldn't. It would be much better to include the local figures. Apple typically doesn't just set its prices according to exchange rates, it sets them what it thinks would be best from a marketing and business perspective. With it being in the non local currencies we as readers are left pondering if that's what the price would be in pounds after a conversion from the actual price they will charge in local currencies, if they will take that figure and convert it to local currencies, or if that's the numeric value of the price with the wrong symbol attached. The correct thing to do is to provide both figures to allow both an easy comparison, while also an understanding into the actual price.

Re:You're kidding me.

[erple2]

If only there was some sort of small, removable storage media that you could plug into portable devices like the iPhone. I wonder when they're going to invent something like that... Then I wouldn't need to worry about this application eating up 1/8 of the total storage on the iPhone.