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Back in January 2009, as Vodafone was preparing to close a £20 million ($30 million) deal to buy Swedish mapmaker Wayfinder, it was seen as a bold move from a carrier intent on entering the apparently lucrative market for location based services. Fast forward to the present day — past the bit where free Google Maps Navigation destroyed TomTom and Garmin share prices, and past the introduction of free turn-by-turn navigation to Nokia’s Ovi Maps — and you’ll find Wayfinder gently sobbing into a handkerchief as it permanently closes up its doors. Vodafone’s Anna Cloke gives us the reason for it with devastating concision:

“We could not charge for something that others gave away for free.”

So there we have it, the paid navigation services deathwatch has its first fatality, and it’s the unfortunate nature of the beast that plenty of others will be following suit, unable to resist the destructive effects of the free and ubiquitous services now on offer.

[Thanks, Chris]

Vodafone’s Wayfinder is first victim of free smartphone navigation services originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Mar 2010 05:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading Google Maps adds bicycle directions, turns out its nothing like ‘Quicksilver’

Google Maps adds bicycle directions, turns out its nothing like ‘Quicksilver’ originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Those lovely people over at Nokia have furnished us with a few images of what their dashboard integration will look like, as well as the names of a few more partners for the Terminal Mode initiative. Intended to smarten up your car’s hardware with the phone’s capabilities — whether that be to play back music, use Ovi Maps, browse the web, or whatever else — this was announced in partnership with Alpine yesterday, but today we’re hearing that Fiat, Harman Becker and Valmet Automotive are also getting in on the fun. The gallery below shows off a mockup from Valmet, which plops your Nokia into a cradle just under the Eva concept’s “on” button, and then transfers all the important stuff onto an LCD integrated into the dashboard above. Nokia tells us that each OEM will have their own particular design, so this might not be how they’ll all look, but as far as ease of use goes, we don’t know how you can improve much on what’s being shown already. Let’s just hope the software is as effective as the presentation is handsome.

Nokia’s Terminal Mode spotted in the wilds of the Geneva Motor Show originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Mar 2010 07:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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What’s the one biggest hurdle to throwing out your dedicated GPS nav unit and going ahead with the free turn-by-turn navigation offered by your smartphone? If your answer was that most phones don’t have the great big screens or easy installation systems of some satnav devices, look out, because Nokia’s about to shake up your world all over again. Alpine has just announced its partnership with the Finnish giant aimed at integrating Nokia handsets — complete with free Ovi Maps navigation — into car dashboard systems. Yes, that means you can use your superb six-amp speaker system to boom out music or voice nav instructions from the phone, as well as your in-dash 7-inch LCD for showing you the right way home. There’s further interaction with widgets keeping an eye on your fuel levels and engine condition, leading to location-based services such as the phone notifying you of the nearest and cheapest petrol station. Connectivity is done over either USB or Bluetooth, and Nokia promises that this Terminal Mode will be showing up in its phones in the very near future. The sooner the better, we say.

Nokia and Alpine integrating handsets into cars, bringing Ovi Maps to your dashboard originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Mar 2010 06:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As everyone knows, Garmin and TomTom have their backs against the ropes in a fight to remain relevant in an age of free GPS turn-by-turn navigation on smartphones (thanks Google and Nokia). While dedicated personal navigators are almost always superior to their converged competition, the gap has certainly narrowed such that it’s become difficult to justify another device when an increasing number of people already carry a fine navigation device in their pockets. But that’s just gut instinct talking, where’s the hard evidence? Certainly not speculative stock prices. A good place to start is in forward-looking financial statements like the one Garmin, the leading navigation device maker in the US, just issued. Gamin says that it expects competition to cause prices to decline by about 10% in the personal navigation device (PND) industry putting pressure on margins, and thus profits, in 2010. It also sees flat or slightly declining revenue over the same period. Fortunately for Garmin, it has a diversified product offering that includes the Nuvifone. However, Garmin admits to being disappointed by sales of the handset that “won” our Editor’s Choice award for Worst Gadget of the Year.

Things aren’t all doom and gloom, though. Garmin has a pair of Nuvifones in the chute including the Android-powered A50. And its Q4 results of $1.43 per share easily beat analyst expectations of 95 cents a share. Even TomTom surprised many last week with a 1% increase in Q4 revenue and net profit of €75 million compared to a €989 million loss a year ago. So there’s some hope left for the dedicated PND market… but not much.

Filed under: Cellphones, GPS

Garmin and TomTom cling to profits, hope originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 25 Feb 2010 02:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ford’s been keeping itself busy on the navigation front, and while you may have noticed that 2010 just began a few weeks ago (on the Gregorian calendar, anyway), 2011 model year vehicles are already on the minds of those in Dearborn. 2011 models with voice-activated navigation systems will be getting an update that brings along HOV logic, helping users who travel with a buddy to get from point A to point B more hastily if carpool lanes are nearby. Of course, only 2,500 miles of those blanket America, so a few other updates might be intriguing to those of you who are sane enough to live outside of the rat race. Branded POI icons, higher density street labeling and HD Radio will come standard on voice-controlled NAV systems, and potentially most interesting is the notion that “integration with SYNC Traffic, Directions and Information (TDI) app — enabling new features like the ability to download destinations sent from a home or work computer from Mapquest” — will hit later on in the year. Full release is after the break.

Continue reading Ford adding HOV logic, ability to download outside Mapquest destinations to 2011 NAV systems

Ford adding HOV logic, ability to download outside Mapquest destinations to 2011 NAV systems originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 25 Feb 2010 00:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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