Car kits for iPods and iPhones aren’t exactly big news, with plenty of third-party accessory companies feeding off the ecosystem already. But an Apple-branded kit, found buried in iPhone OS 4?
Here’s a question for the gadget-loving truck drivers out there: How many times have you misjudged the height of your truck, crashing into the bridge above you? How many times have you forgotten to keep the truck in a low gear while descending a steep hill? Because if you’d had Garmin’s nüvi 465T satnav installed, it would have helped you avoided those schoolboy errors that you’ve probably never actually made.
It seems that this week is the week I end up with too much to actually play with. On top of a couple of things from last week (I’m still playing with the Ricoh GXR and the Sony Bloggie), I’ve added a couple of TomTom satnavs (the Start and the Go 750), a Soniq iPod dock (iM600k) and a Windows 7 tablet from Handii.
Ovi Maps has been a focal point for Nokia in the last few weeks since they gave it all away for free, so it’s not surprising a hardware company wants to use their turn-by-turn navigation for cars.
No surprises here, with both the WinMo-running M10 and Android-powered A50 both leaked in January by Asustek’s president. The partnership between Garmin and Asustek has resulted in a few lacklustre phones, but the A50 actually sounds more than decent.
After Nokia gave away its Ovi Maps for free on January 21 – that’s just 13 days ago – they’ve seen 1.4 million downloads. “We’re averaging a download a second, 24 hours a day” claimed Nokia’s Anssi Vanjoki. [Mobile-Ent]
It was sadly predictable, especially after the exact same thing happened last October when Google released their free turn-by-turn navigation. Cheer up though TomTom and Navigon – at least you’ve got iPhone apps, right? Oh. [Yahoo Finance via TechRadar]
Made in under 10 minutes for less than two bucks, this adjustable smartphone car mount was created by one very frustrated Scion XB driver, fed up of not being able to find a suitable cradle.
Following Google’s momentous news last October about free turn-by-turn navigation on Android phones, Nokia’s just now abolished the price tag for 74 countries. That’s 73 more than Google offers it to. And even better news – it’s available now.
