Is Google jumping into GPS navigation on iPhone?
If you were underwhelmed with Mr. Jobs iPhone GPS demo like me, take heart. While the demo was fun, it wasn’t too practical a tool, I mean if you’ve got GPS then you want turn by turn navigation. Something big is around the corner and I believe it has Google’s fingerprints all over it. The iPhone SDK forbids developers to produce a real-time navigation application so we know there are protecting someone.
Some rumors have said Tom Tom was that someone. But it looks to me like they built their app on a jailbroken iphone, so that puts them at risk. I don’t think that is going to happen.
The Google map application has been on the phone since day one. Google Maps is a great resource in its own right and the point by point directions are great. But what is Google waiting for to jump into the navigation market? They’ve built phone apps, they’ve got a POI database, they want to serve advertisements to us that are locally significant (one thing all competitors can’t do yet). This would be a coup for them to jump on.
I believe we’ll see Google complete it’s mapping circle with navigation. Anyone care to guess why Google or Apple didn’t want to announce this last week? Let us know in the comments.
Read [Engadget]
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Tags: sat-nav, gps, AAC, mobiles
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