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Magellan enters the iPhone nav app sweepstakes

by Mel Martin Nov 16th 2009 at 5:00PM

I guess it was inevitable. Magellan has just launched an iPhone app that looks great and will offer road warriors even more choice in a very competitive landscape.

The Magellan Roadmate 2010 North America is being offered for a 'limited time' for U.S. 79.99. [iTunes link] The 1.36 GB app includes the usual features plus text-to-speech for pronouncing street names, a car finding feature for when you park, pedestrian mode, lane assist, 3D landmarks, in-app music control, address book integration and an intuitive one touch menu system.

With the Magellan offering, all the big navigation companies have a cell phone product. TomTom is on the iPhone along with Navigon, and Garmin has a cell phone/ nav app hardware solution that hasn't exactly caught on fire with consumers. Then there is the 'will it or won't it appear on the iPhone' Google app.

Also interesting is that Magellan has announced a Premium Car Kit that will allow you to keep your iPhone in your current case, charge your phone, give you a bluetooth speaker phone, allow an iPod touch to work as a GPS, and it is supposed to function with any nav app. No price or specific launch date for the car kit, but it's supposed to be available before the end of this year.

We'll get a review copy of the Magellan app ASAP and give it our usual whirl around town. The more choice the better for iPhone users, and the new features on this Magellan app are most welcome.

[Thanks to David for the tip]


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I guess it was inevitable. Magellan has just launched an iPhone app that looks great and will offer road warriors even more choice in a...
 

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Rick Johnson

Geolife and Posimotion also have a solution out for the iPod touch right now called Navmii. It's only in the UK, but I've heard that there's a US version coming soon. They even have a piece of hardware called the G-Fi that sends the GPS data over wifi.

November 18 2009 at 5:42 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Maggie

this app is actually pretty good. I played with it and it was very friendly user. The car kit is better than TomTom cuz it WORKS WITH ANY GPS app, not only their's!

November 17 2009 at 3:35 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
jbrown510

Personally I long for a Garmin iPhone App. I sOOooo miss my Garmin stand alone units (all three).

I use Navigon ATM, and it's OK but has several fatal flaws... #1 there is no way from the main screen to temporarily mute voice prompts... I don't need to hear every 20 seconds driving through LA on the freeway to keep to the left because there is some kind of a merge/interchange going on. #2 Podcasts don't show up when accessing the iPod from the App. #3 the POIs are POS... seriously 90% of the businesses I search for are not found and I end up having to use the map application to find it and then copy the address into Navigon....

If/When you review the Magellan app I hope you consider those three points above :)

November 16 2009 at 10:46 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
williamlane

Why would you release an app, put it up on your own company site with a 'View Demo' link that displays.........


nothing


'coming soon'


November 16 2009 at 7:11 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Rembert

That Magellan carkit sounds interesting. The TomTom carkit is a no-go for me as I have a big MPV car with a windscreen that's way too far away. Navigon has announced an active carkit as well. So the race has begun.

For now I'll stick with a cheap iPhone holder attached to a small sidewindow just in front of the door window.

November 16 2009 at 6:07 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Rembert's comment
Kelmon

Indeed, that's another good thing from this announcement - there's going to be real competition in the iPhone GPS Cradle market and TomTom, hopefully, will need to cut the ridiculous price that they are charging for their solution. I haven't selected a solution yet so my money is still up for grabs.

November 17 2009 at 7:29 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
dagamer43

My guess is with all of these 3rd party GPS makers that have invested in the iPhone platform, Apple is unlikely to want Google Maps Nagivation screwing that up by releasing it for free.

November 16 2009 at 5:32 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
3 replies to dagamer43's comment
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