TUAW told you it was coming, and it has arrived. TomTom has updated its U.S. GPS navigation app [US$99.99, iTunes link] and added text-to-speech, advanced lane guidance, and a 'help me' feature for use in emergencies.

TomTom has been a little late to the text-to-speech party, with most competitors already offering this important function. Magellan has now jumped into the game with a very nice nav app as well, and at an introductory price that undercuts the TomTom app by twenty bucks.

All of the major navigation apps for the iPhone are quickly approaching feature parity. At this point, your main decision is whether you want the data streamed to your phone (as the AT&T app does), or have maps and data built into the app (like TomTom, Navigon, Magellan and some others).

Looming over whatever decision you make is trying to figure out if Apple will ever allow the Google turn-by-turn navigation app into the app store. It's going to be free, and Google says it wants the app to be on the iPhone. Of course things haven't been going swimmingly between Google and Apple of late (Google Voice, Android competition), so it's just a guess as to how that will all turn out.

If you need a navigation app in order to get to Grandma's house for the holidays, it's probably a good time to buy one. However, If you're willing to wait for the possibility of Google's free turn-by-turn nav app making it to the iPhone, you might be rewarded for your patience.

Very welcome news for owners of the TomTom iPhone nav app [iTunes link for U.S. version]; the company has announced a free update that includes many of the features that people were craving.

• Advanced lane guidance giving drivers extra clarity when navigating difficult junctions. For the first time this is in both landscape and portrait mode.
• Text-to-speech helping motorists to keep their eyes on the road by enabling street names and places to be read aloud as part of the spoken instructions.
• "Help Me" providing direct access to emergency numbers and directions to the nearest emergency providers.
• Updated map and safety camera database (Europe only)
• Customizable audio warnings when approaching safety cameras or driving over the speed limit, increasing driver safety and saving money.
• iPod player control ensuring drivers can conveniently control their music from within the application.

TomTom submitted the new version to Apple yesterday, and as usual, it's anybody's guess when it will emerge. It won't be fast enough for TomTom owners, who have seen their app fall behind the feature rich Navigon app and other GPS offerings.

The joker in this particular deck is still the free Google Navigation app, which is trying to get onto the iPhone and will have a gaggle of features no one else is offering.

[via Engadget]

The long-awaited TomTom car kit for the iPhone has finally arrived at the Apple store. The hardware/software combination hardware unit sells for US $119.95. [Sorry about the mixup. As noted in the comments, the app is an additional $50-$100 depending on your locale.]

The cradle is designed to enhance the TomTom GPS app [iTunes link], which has been available since July.

The kit provides secure docking and enhanced GPS performance with its own built-in GPS receiver. The car kit will charge your iPhone and give you for hands-free calling. The unit also has an audio out connector so you can play your music through your car audio system, however, the cable that enables this is not included.

The TomTom solution has been criticized by some for being too expensive because the car kit plus the cost of the Tom Tom navigation application is more than $200. One could easily buy a standalone GPS for less than that, although you have more hardware to carry.

The TomTom has also fallen a bit behind the best-selling Navigon application which includes a text-to-speech feature and has received generally better reviews from consumers.

According to the Apple Store, the car kit is not yet available, and there is no time estimate of a ship date. (Note: some of our readers are getting December 4 ship dates from the Apple Store.)

[Thanks to all our readers for tipping us to this story]

It's here, at least if you are in the U.K. One of our readers tipped us that he was able to buy the TomTom kit for £99.95 from the Apple Store at Bluewater in Kent.

The kit has its own GPS chip which is supposed to be more sensitive than the GPS chip built into the iPhone. The car kit is listed as 'coming soon' at the U.S. Apple Store. It's expected to cost US$119.95, and when added to the cost of the TomTom app brings the total to more than $200.

That high price has caused some to question paying that much money for a GPS unit, when a standalone model can be bought for less. We'll be following the user comments on the car kit, and hope to get one ourselves for testing soon.

The whole category of GPS solutions for the Phone is moving very fast, and it seems almost every week a new app comes out with more and more features giving the iPhone parity with the separate units you can buy.

TomTom hopes to offer a high performance solution while still letting a person carry one device that does it all, unless you count the car kit as another device, of course.

Thanks to Stu for the tip.

The TomTom navigation app [iTunes link] for iPhone has been available since August of this year, but many TUAW readers have told us they're holding off on a purchasing decision until they can see how the announced iPhone car kit enhances the use of the app.

The car kit, which includes a secondary GPS receiver and speaker as well as a mount for holding the iPhone, is scheduled to ship in the U.S. in October. TomTom International B.V. has announced the pricing for the mount, which has a suggested retail price of US$119.95 or €99.95.

Several GPS blogs are already questioning the pricing, noting that the total price for the kit and app will be US$219.94, more than some much more capable personal navigation devices. On the other hand, the car kit isn't patented, so other companies may come out with less expensive options in short order.

[via GPSTracklog]

Live in Australia? Have an iPhone? Do you use the iPhone's built-in Maps app, Navigon, or TomTom [iTunes links] to navigate? If you answered yes to all three of those questions, then I have some bad news for you: under the Australian Road Rule 8th Amendment, all use of the iPhone in your car is soon to be banned unless you buy a cradle for it, including using it as a GPS navigator.

An article from the Sydney Morning Herald initially makes it sound as though you won't be able to use such apps at all, especially after reading this quote from a spokesperson for VicRoads, the traffic authority for the Australian state of Victoria: "A phone will only be allowed to be used for its primary purpose. If it's a phone, it's a phone." But once you read farther down the article states, "Drivers will only be able to use mobile phones if they are placed in purpose-made cradles and operation is entirely hands-free." The language of the amendment itself also supports that interpretation.

So it's not the end of the road for iPhone nav apps in Australia, but if you want to continue using your iPhone for said purpose, you'd better go buy a cradle for it, because the fine for getting caught using your iPhone in the car without one is heinously expensive: AU$234! Even TomTom's iPhone cradle doesn't cost that much.

So far the new rule is only confirmed to be rolling out in Victoria, and not until November 9. But don't be surprised if other states and territories follow suit afterward.

New Zealand has a similar cellphone ban coming on November 1, but the NZ proposal is less draconian than the Australian version: the fine is only NZ$80, and the language in the proposal focuses on use of mobile phones for talking and texting, without making any mention of GPS or other uses.

The Australian law seems a bit of an overreach, but I fully support New Zealand's upcoming ban on talking and texting while driving (especially texting – I can't fathom why anyone would think it's okay to text and drive at the same time). I can't speak for Australia's roads, but the roads in New Zealand definitely require one's full attention. The iPhone in particular requires a lot of visual focus in order to use it as a phone unless you have a handsfree setup, and that kind of distraction from the task of driving could potentially lead to a fatal crash on our narrow, winding roads.

Of course there's a question of just how enforceable these laws will be in either country. Unless you're holding the phone up to the side of your head or using it at night, it's unlikely that a passing police car is going to see that your eyes are focused on what's in your hand rather than what's on the road. That's where common sense has to step in: is that phone call from your boss important enough to risk flying off the road? Probably not.

Thanks to reader Brian Rayner for sending this one in.

Since its release in late August, the TomTom for iPhone [iTunes Link] application has received a lot of attention. When the application was first debuted at WWDC, it became one of the first products to combine both hardware and software for the iPhone. The car-kit (which provides a separate GPS module for enhanced positioning, connections for audio and iPhone charging capability) was expected to be released alongside the app.

More information was then leaked after TomTom's car kit was seen on the FCC website.

It looks like TomTom has decided to delay the release of the car kit until October to "deliver the highest quality innovative product." In a small note on their website's FAQ page, TomTom announced:

The TomTom car kit availability was originally planned for this summer. But we have decided to take some extra weeks in order to deliver the highest quality on this innovative product. So, the car kit will become available this October on www.tomtom.com.

There are now many GPS apps available for the iPhone, but much of the excitement and anticipation for the TomTom version stems from its inclusion of a bundled accessory. We'll see how sales do when the car kit is released later next month.

There's been plenty of hype and mystery surrounding the TomTom GPS navigation app for iPhone. Originally announced back in June, the app created by the popular GPS company promised to be the first of its kind... only to have competing apps from Navigon, Telenav from AT&T, iGO and others hit the store ahead of it.

Finally, TomTom for iPhone [iTunes Link] has debuted on iTunes in the US today (already up and reviewed in its New Zealand incarnation) and is now available for purchase. Priced at $99.99, the app is a fully featured turn-by-turn GPS system that includes:

• landscape and portrait modes & pinch to zoom take full advantage of the iPhone interface
• voice guided directions
• integrated with your iPhone address book
• route options including fastest, most direct, etc.
• ability to find points of interest and call for reservations

TomTom is also offering a bundle including the application and a car cradle kit that offers enhanced GPS performance, a charging port and hands-free calling.

Having just hit the app store, details are still coming in about the features of the app and news about the car kit's availability. TomTom's iPhone website doesn't seem to be updated often, but it offers a link to subscribe to news updates as they become available.

TomTom's co-founder and CTO Peter-Frans Pauwels first demonstrated his company's turn-by-turn solution for the iPhone at WWDC in June of '09. You can watch a teaser video above. Since then, many customers have anticipated this app's release and pricing.

Handtec may have let the cat out of the bag. Daniweb linked to a page listing "TomTom for iPhone including mount" for £113.85 ($193.89US as of this writing) via preorder. That's a bit steeper that we were expecting here at TUAW, but not astronomical. TomTom's stand-alone units range in price from $119 to nearly $400. I hope to use my 3GS as a turn-by-turn device and avoid adding one more "thing" from the car.

How about you? Are you interested in an iPhone-based solution or do you want a stand-alone?

I love GPS. in the mid 1990s I had a Garmin unit that had no maps, just a bread crumb trail of where you were and where you'd been. I lived in England at the time, and thought I had a highly original idea to take it to the Royal Observatory at Greenwich and walk across the Meridian line and watch the screen as the numbers dropped to zero longitude. When I got there, I was hardly alone. I was surrounded by other geeks doing exactly the same thing. Oh well.

GPS has come a long way, and AT&T has released their subscription based Navigator [App Store] for the iPhone. It requires OS version 3.0. It is fee based, and will set you back US$9.95 a month on your AT&T bill. It is loaded with features, and has voice guided turn by turn directions. It also offers:

• Automatic rerouting
• Updated maps with no additional charge
• Real time traffic updates
• Fuel Price searches and navigation to those locations
• Point of interest searches in all the usual categories like ATM machines, hospitals, restaurants, airports

The map gives you a 3D view from a position just above and behind your vehicle. On the setup page you can chose flat maps if your prefer. I found the maps easy to read but would have preferred a landscape view instead of portrait (there is no option to change the orientation). I saw a little lag when driving, but generally the response was fast.

The app really needs a 3G connection. It works on the EDGE network, but was slow to load graphics. If you are somewhere where you have neither you are out of luck. No maps are contained on the app and nothing is cached. In essence, the app is only as good as the AT&T network, and if you do a lot of driving where the network is weak or absent, you'll be navigating on your own.

I found the voice very hard to hear. This is a limitation of the iPhone speaker. It just wasn't designed to be played at a loud volume. On the highway, with road noise, good luck hearing that warning to turn. Of course, the directions are on the map, but the whole purpose of voice instructions is to keep you from looking at the map.

Other features are a high altitude view of your entire trip from beginning to end, a list of your turns on a scrollable page, directions to the nearest AT&T WiFi hotspots (nice), and the ability to set your default navigation method like shortest, fastest, traffic optimized, prefer highways or streets, or pedestrian routing if you're not driving.

I found the voice alerts were too frequent. Frankly, the app is a blabbermouth, and it kept reminding me of a faraway turn too often for my taste. It would be nice to be able to set just how aggressive the voice warnings are.

The big question for most iPhone users will be whether to wait for other nav apps to appear. TomTom is imminent, as is an app from Navigon. They both download the maps to your phone, so you are not dependent on the AT&T network. You only need GPS, and that signal is everywhere. You could also buy an inexpensive dedicated unit; on the low end that will cost about the same as a year of the AT&T subscription, and will certainly have a better speaker. Of course, there will be fees to update the maps, but in my experience you can use a GPS for years without doing that. Points of interest change, but the iPhone provides other sources like Google for up to date info.

I also think it is a bloody shame that the AT&T app has no access to your address book. Apple has walled that data off from 3rd party apps, (Update: Apple provides the ability, the Navigator app hasn't implemented it) and it is just senseless to have you type everything in again. You can copy and paste the data, but it is a needless pain. The AT&T app has this access when it runs on other phones like the Blackberry.

In summary, the app works, and is feature laden. I'm not sure it is the best option for in-car navigation, and you might want to wait for other solutions to appear. Of course, you can always get the AT&T app and cancel. It's a month-by-month charge.

So how is it like to drive with this app? My colleague Steven Sande did just that, and his report will follow soon.

Before you go, here are some screen shots to give you a look at some of the features on AT&T Navigator:

It's been a gap in the functionality of the GPS-enabled iPhone 3G for months, and one that was promised for the 3.0 software update (even though third parties have been trying to get it working for a while now): turn-by-turn navigation. Finally, the light at the end of the tunnel has been conclusively demonstrated not to be an oncoming train; it's the faint guiding glow from TomTom for iPhone, the first announced TBT navigation package for the 3.0 software (X-Road is already in the store for 2.1 devices).

There's no cost information yet (Engadget speculates 'pricey' so as not to cannibalize TomTom's hardware business), and the launch date is only noted as after the June 17th 3.0 software availability, but it certainly looks cool: a software app combined with a custom bracket & charging cable, hands-free calling and 'enhanced GPS performance' included. For iPhone owners who don't yet have in-car GPS, this could be a fantastic offering, if the price is right.

Video of the TomTom solution in the second half of the post. I already own a TomTom ONE, and just ponied up the $79 for a year of map updates... probably should have waited.

Reuters is reporting that TomTom, manufacturers of portable, consumer GPS devices, have got their service up and running for the iPhone. "Our navigation system runs on the iPhone already," said a TomTom spokesman this week.

At first glance, this seems like another vendor announcing that their product will be available for the iPhone, but it's much more. When it debuted last year, I said that it's really a computer that happens to make phone calls. That's only become more evident since. During Monday's keynote, Steve Jobs noted that 98% of iPhone owners are using it for mobile browsing and 80% are using 10 or more features.

I use mine for email, the web (especially Twitter) and as an iPod far more often than I do to make phone calls. In fact, it has replaced my 8GB nano which sits neglected on my desk. It serves as a handy stand-in for my MacBook Pro when I want to read and reply to mail, check RSS feeds, post to Twitter and so on.

Now it can run TomTom software, so there's three devices it has replaced. Who knows what other incredible applications await us on July 11th. It may sound like the ramblings of a star-struck fanboy to say that the iPhone will significantly change people's perception of what a portable device can do, but it's also entirely accurate.

[Via Ars Technica]

Getting your dash-mount GPS unit and your Mac to talk to each other can be an exercise in frustration. TomTom's Mac client, while better than some of the other vendors' nonexistent Mac versions, has lagged behind the Windows version for a while -- I've been managing my TomTom GO through VMware Fusion rather than struggle with the Mac client. Now, a version of the TomTom client promising feature parity has been released, downloadable from the TomTom HOME site (direct link here).

The new 2.2.0 version does look a bit more like the Windows version, and seems to work fine for me; however, some have noted that you are now limited to a single backup of your device, rather than the multiple instances that you had before. Since a single TomTom backup can weigh in at 900 MB or more, I'm just fine with only one. The download is 31 MB and is freely available to TomTom users.

Thanks Rob

TomTom is one of the leading GPS device makers out there, with its TomTom Go device setting a new standard while back. Now electronista is pointing to a FCC filing revealing the TomTom DUO, a "handheld [that] would have support for a unique USB docking station in the style of a car stereo's faceplate, allowing direct control of iPods." The DUO will also apparently have Bluetooth and a built-in FM transmitter (boo!) to "eliminate cabling in the link between the car, DUO, and Bluetooth-equipped cellphones." This sounds like a great idea (except for the FM transmitter part); it seems like a natural pairing of a car GPS mapping device and the iPod. I just hope it doesn't cost and arm and a leg. Apparently, the device will be officially revealed at CeBIT expo in Germany next month.

[Via electronista]