iPhone + Google Maps
When Steve showed Google Maps running on iPhone for the first time it looked nice. It had the coolness factor but besides that it was not of much use. Checking for a place now and then but, overall, not that appealing.
Now, if you take a look at the latest version of Google Maps, you’ll notice that it has 80% of the functionalities a GPS software like TomTom has:
- Maps
- Points of Interest
- Directions
- Favorites
- Use of coordinates and/or street address
These are the features one can use. What about hidden features? It might already have algorithms for calculating alternative paths and animations for simulating a car. Is it that difficult for a multi-billion dollar company to achieve? Not at all.
So, what would the iPhone need in order to be a GPS? A GPS receiver. It might be built-in but I guess everyone would notice by now by taking a look at the FCC specifications. On the other hand, I don’t believe Steve would like having a separate device just for capturing the GPS coordinates. I don’t have an explanation for this yet.
Nevertheless, what I do know is that the GPS market is booming right now. TomTom, the Dutch company, is making millions out of it. Why wouldn’t Google want to do the same? Google has the tools plus they truly believe the mobile phone is the future. As for Apple, they’d have another compelling reason for users to buy the iPhone and they’d have yours truly myself buying it right away (which should enough for it to have a GPS bundled in! :-).
You’re forgotten my company(NDrive) ;)
Is the only Portuguese company in the market in this sector, we’ve duplicated sales last year and we are working now in core 2. We support Pocket PC, Symbian, etc. I’m waiting for iPhone to play with it.
Curiously i’m working on traffic now, we already support weather, points of interests, events, pharmacies, favorites. All dynamic, not static.
I think “iPhone + Google Maps” in the European market will not have too much impact, just because NDrive, Tom Tom, Navigon etc. They have better(detailed) maps and I think better services too.
Lol Nuno, do you work at InfoPortugal?
Yes.
I have a friend working there too. Do you know Joao Paredes from FEUP?
do somebody knows if i can buy an iphone as an european people in usa on june?
iphone, it’s still unsure. If you really are tied to the contract then you can’t because the contract usually requires an american SSN. If you can purchase an iPhone for a higher price without contract then yes, you can.
The question is whether you’re always tied to the contract or not. Perhaps it would be quite a bad move to do so but we’ll only find out in June.
I think these maps will show more funcionality than we were shown…
I wrote about this..