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Magellan car kit detailed at FCC filing

by Mel Martin Nov 18th 2009 at 3:00PM

That was fast. We just learned Magellan was going to offer a car kit for the iPhone and it has already hit the FCC. GPSTracklog.com has a detailed drawing of the new device, and it looks to be quite complete. Magellan has said the kit will be on sale before the end of the year, and even give the iPod touch full nav capabilities.

The car kit is supposed to allow any iPhone GPS app to work with it, so you're not limited to the Magellan app. It works in portrait or landscape mode, and has a speaker for hearing directions and also link to your iPhone for Bluetooth based calls.

The Magellan Roadmate app itself [iTunes link] has a boatload of good features, and we're anxious to get our hands on the app for a full test. Holiday travelers will have a lot of good choices for navigating to your destinations. Remember when we thought the plain old Google Maps app was cool?

Thanks to Rich for the tip.

[via GPSTracklog.com]

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That was fast. We just learned Magellan was going to offer a car kit for the iPhone and it has already hit the FCC. GPSTracklog.com has a...
 

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brian

wow! i AM a manufacturer, and i DO take advice from spam on blogs! thanks mike marcus!

November 19 2009 at 12:44 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Roger Wilco

Bear in mind that on the iPod Touch this will presumably only support the self-contained GPS applications that don't require a continuous (cellular) data connection. That rules out many of the more interesting ones.

November 18 2009 at 5:31 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to Roger Wilco's comment
brian

the new google maps navigator can cache trips though.. so maybe theres still hope for that on ipod touch (if it gets approved at all)

November 18 2009 at 6:36 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Kelmon

"the new google maps navigator can cache trips though"

Bugger that. That the Google Navigator can cache trips does put it in a better position than the usual cloud-based GPS services but it still means that you need to stick to your trip. If you want to make changes to your trip, or even just browse the map, then you are screwed. I can understand why people are getting excited about Google Navigator (hey, it's proper GPS navigation for free!) but I don't want to travel without the maps actually on my device.

November 19 2009 at 3:21 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jaap

But it doesn't, so I'm not.

November 18 2009 at 5:29 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jaap

If this has a dock cable socket at the bottom so I can connect it to my car stereo as well as charge my iPhone, I'm interested.

November 18 2009 at 5:23 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Noah

And then Google released Google Navigator... which is being stone-walled by Apple, yet again.

November 18 2009 at 5:04 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to Noah's comment
Bloobie

And you know this how? I don't see Google Navigator available on anything other than Google's own Android 2.0.

November 18 2009 at 8:55 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Kelmon

"And then Google released Google Navigator... which is being stone-walled by Apple, yet again."

Apart from echoing the previous comment that doubts your information, I will also ask, why do you think Apple would do that? If Google Navigator is as good as it is being made out to be, do you not think that Apple would want it to be available on the iPhone as well in order to prevent people from choosing or switching to the Android platform? They aren't going to lose anything from allowing the application in the App Store.

I'm sorry but this conspiracy theory nonsense has to stop.

November 19 2009 at 3:17 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
julian

thats awesome!
now people are thinking! letting ipod touches do all the good stuff too

November 18 2009 at 4:59 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
stainboy

if it improves the GPS signal, i would imagine any app that uses the GPS should benefit.

i'm hoping for a car kit that doesn't cost $100 or more. most of the apps are expensive enough.

November 18 2009 at 4:16 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
TN9Design

This may be a stupid question but will this improve the standard google maps app that comes with the phone as well?

November 18 2009 at 3:21 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to TN9Design's comment
Kelmon

It depends on what you mean by "improve". As far as I understand it, it should enable your position to be determined faster than if you were using your iPhone 3G by itself and perhaps provide a more reliable GPS signal but I think that is about it.

November 19 2009 at 3:12 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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