August 17th, 2009
TomTom arrives on the iPhone for $100
AT&T Navigator’s subscription based GPS navigation solution (see our review) was the first full GPS voice navigation system for the Apple iPhone, but there is now some serious competition in the GPS navigation space that may even start knocking out dedicated PND. The biggest news today is that TomTom for the iPhone was released in the US. TomTom (iTunes link) is a well known name in PNDs and their iPhone solution is one of the most costly at $99. Other recent stand-alone (no subscription required) GPS navigation solutions for the iPhone include Navigon at a special $69.99 launch price and CoPilot Live for $34.99. There is quite a price range across these navigation solutions and we’ll have to see if the high cost of TomTom is worth the premium over CoPilot Live 8.
TomTom also plans to sell a full kit that includes a car mounting and charging station. The TomTom software looks functionally similar to both Navigon and CoPilot Live with large, easily tappable buttons and icons, easy rotation between portrait and landscape, and a huge POI database. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on the user reviews though because of the wide variation in prices across these software products.
If you have tried any of these three, feel free to let us know how the software worked for you as we look for the champ in iPhone GPS navigation.
Matthew Miller is an avid mobile device enthusiast who works during the day as a professional naval architect in Seattle. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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