Starting the whole holiday shopping early? WalMart hopes so, and is offering the Garmin Nuvi 750 on sale for $169. The widescreen unit (4.3-inches) has text to speech - it says street names, North American Maps, the ability to advance plan routes ahead of time from point A to B.
INRIX and ALK Technologies, announced that INRIX will power real-time traffic data in ALK Technologies popular CoPilot® Live™ v8 GPS navigation app for Apple iPhone, Google Android and Windows phones in North America. CoPilot is one of the Top Grossing Apps at the iTunes App store in the US at the pretty amazing price of $35.
This release also represents a milestone in that it will be powered by the in application purchase ability - allowing you to buy the App, then add-on the traffic option from within the application itself. The price for traffic service is $19.99 a year at the Co-Pilot site, and I would imagine that would also apply for in-app purchases. That's pretty cheap for some best in class traffic coverage and capabilities.
More on the news release below after the jump.
More info at ALK - Co-Pilot and Inrix
It's time once again to start looking for those Black Friday GPS Deals. We've made it a tradition of scouring the net to find Black Friday information about what kind of deals will be available for you to jump on and grab a great deal on that GPS you've had your eye on.
Updating this Post
We will be updating this post on a regular basis right through Black Friday - book mark it and come back.
For now, we have Gander Mountain and Sears with some Black Friday GPS Sales and I know the list will grow to be long and interesting.
MSN Direct, the service that offers traffic, weather, movie times and more to some GPS units, including Garmin Nuvi 780, 880, 885, will go dark on January 1, 2012. The announcement was made with the backdrop of other technologies coming forward, namely the slow promising crawl of broadband connected devices. The service is a step up from the FM based TMC traffic, and has more capability to deliver other services directly to the unit while you drive.
Google Navigation - Free Mobile Phone Navigation App
In what could be a death blow to those $50+ mobile phone navigation applications, the NYT reported that Google is launching a turn by turn navigation application for free. Google plans on launching the application to mobile phones with an ad supported model. The convenience of the application that may be pre-loaded onto smart phones could make the millions of smart phone users owners of a pretty solid mobile navigation application. Recently I reviewed the TomTom application for the iPhone and thought that the overall user experience was pretty good on my iPhone. The convenience of having the application in your pocket, ready to go at any time is pretty good. I firmly believe that free and already on my phone can beat $150 stand alone GPS and in my other car. Granted not everyone has a smart phone right now, but many do.
Gauging from the fact that Google is creating their own maps, and that their traffic data is pretty impressive in the road coverage, Google may in fact be prepping an impressive offering. Google is offering the beta application for Android phones already. With the application, you can give the device voice commands, and see the route in satellite view - viewing the road ahead with a satellite picture of the world around you. With the Street View option, you can get a look at the street ahead, what lane to be in and the view of your building when you arrive. Pretty amazing. We'll see if the package really delivers the user experience that they promise.
Garmin Downloads - Halloween "Vehicles" for your Garmin GPS
Garmin has their Halloween Boo Bundle out for the season. Packed with seven vehicles for you to put on your Garmin and enjoy. Check out the Garmin Garage for the Boo Bundle and more. The easy directions on how to download and use the vehicles on your compatible Garmin are available there too.
iPhone Navigation Apps - Top Grossing Apps in the iTunes Store
Among the Top Grossing Apps at the iTunes store are games, utilities and three Navigations Apps for your iPhone 3G or iPhone 3GS.
#3 - Navigon for North America- They were a first mover and are not pretty high on the list coming in at $89. They continue to add features and are readying a subscription traffic feature for the software later this year.
#7 - Motion X GPS Drive - The low cost solution delivers a navigation solution that needs to be connected to pull down the map set. Other solutions include the maps in the download, while this solution pulls them down live over the air. Lose your connection and lose the ability to pull down new maps. Priced at $2.99 makes it pretty popular to be able to hit the 10 grossing applications
#33 - TomTom North America - This application offers a lot of capability but not all of the capabilities that one might find in a higher end unit. Very solid navigation from this App - Read my full review of the TomTom App that I posted earlier this week. Available for $99.
#90 - Co-Pilot Live - at $35 this is a pretty amazing price for the features - they are delivering monthly Highway map updates to you for this price. Quarterly updates to North America helps keep the rest of the roads up to date.
Don't know if you've noticed, but I have, prices are way down on GPS units over the past year. But of course they are, right? We are coming out of a recession. In an article from teh WSJ today, they cited the prices of GPS units a year ago and now, indicating that the average selling price dropped from $242 to $189 from August of 2008 vs. August 2009.
To me, that signals a good holiday season if you want to go shopping for a GPS. While the average is still fairly high, I see a lot of great units below that average number, and expect that you can get an excellent widescreen device to the mid-100's and a standard screen entry level device for around $100, not on sale, and well below $100 for deep discounts like on Black Friday.
Thought I would pass this along. Garmin has launched a TV campaign that includes three versions of the commercial above. Take a look; if you want to see the other two, cruise on over to the GarminBlog channel at YouTube, and look in the right column under all the videos they have uploaded.
Not the first time TomTom has worked on an in dash infortainment unit, but this updated one comes with a lot of great TomTom features, including Bluetooth handsfree calling, Enhanced Positioning technology that helps the unit know where you are when it loses the satellite signal in a tunnel, TMC traffic technology, and the ability to play your favorite song off the radio or an iPod. The unit has a USB port to handle the iPod or other MP3 players; they also speak of an "Optional iPod support" for optimal handling of the iPod. Not sure if there is on screen support or not, but I'd be happy with it working on the USB cable for all iPods and iPhones.
The unit is available in Europe only right now for about 599 euros, or about $900. No word on US launch plans.
Inrix Launches Traffic Application for Android - Crowd Sourced Traffic
Inrix has launched their Inrix Traffic application for the Android platform following their iPhone launch earlier this year. The application takes advantage of a massive amount of road coverage (160,000 miles covered), and gives you detailed information about the situation on roads around you via color coded maps that you can pan, and zoom on. The Red, Yellow, green designations on roads allows you to quickly see the congestion levels, while incident reports offer insight into some of the causes of the congestion. The Inrix App also forecasts traffic conditions up to an hour into the future so you can see what life might be like if you leave later.
The Inrix traffic application gets its data from a network of road sensors, and traffic probes like Taxi's, delivery trucks, long haul trucks, and other Inrix Traffic users, yes that's right; you and me. On the Terms and Conditions for my iPhone App, they confirm that the application collects anonymous data, and processes it for the traffic reporting and collection. It reads in part: "By using this App, you agree to Inrix's collection, processing, storage transfer and ...use of your non-personally identifiable information (anonymous) as part of Inrix's comprehensive traffic products."
So, join the crew, see what the traffic is like in your area, and help out the rest of us at the same time.
The TomTom App for the iPhone was one of the early Apps for the iPhone from a major GPS manufacturer and easily emulates their standalone models in functionality and quality. Navigating with the iPhone has been an unmet promise since the iPhone launched with its teaser GPS capability, which until its update this summer would not allow turn by turn direction Apps on the device.
TomTom's iPhone App is a straight forward navigator, not really utilizing the extensive connectivity to perform back flips in the navigation world, but instead elects to put its energy into making a high quality experience for users in a simple interface. This sometimes limiting simplicity offers entry level capabilities in a trustworthy wrapper that I think is surprisingly good. What I cannot capture properly in words is the simple convenience of having a capable navigation device in your pocket wherever you go. There is no wondering if you left your GPS in the other car, no wondering if you left it at home while on a business trip (happened to me recently and it was a miserable experience - tried to navigate with built in Google maps while someone else drove; never again), and no wondering if you will get to your destination; your GPS is already in your pocket.
Garmin has shown on their website their new LARGE screened unit, the Nuvi 1450 - a 5-inch screened unit that offers a lot of features that make it one of the top of the line entries from Garmin. The screen is a nice place to start, but it also comes with map coverage of North America, lane view to help you choose which lane you need to be in as you come up to complex highway intersections, and of course text to speech - it says road names. the unit can allow you to plan up to 10 routes in advance and then store them for use later; sounds like the ideal unit for the winter migration south via motor home! It does not come with Bluetooth handsfree or the Nulink services that connect you to the internet for Google searches, live detailed traffic among other things.
TomTom has released a minor update for the iPhone - it is free. The update mainly deals with left over from the first launch and not the awaited upgrade that blows out some functionality. Unfortunately, the entire 1.2GB update is needed. The TomTom iPhone ver 1.1 App includes:
Enhanced GPS Technology:
Shows your location on the map with greater precision
Follows your car more accurately while you drive
New Navigate to Contact Engine:
Handles many more address formats including abbreviations
Better supports US addresses
What a lot of people that I talk to are hoping for is the upgrade that includes:
Text to Speech - says road names
Lane Guidance - shows which lane you should be in when coming to a complex highway interchange
Optional traffic coverage - uses the connected nature of the iPhone to collect very detailed traffic news and offers back intelligent route offerings.
I expect these features to be offered sooner than later.
TomTom has a pair of new units that appear ready to take the stage as price fighters with US maps, and for the TomTom XL 325S version, added text to speech -it says road names. Last year, TomTom announced a special model; the TomTom ONE 125, a standard screen (3.5-inch) unit that had only US maps, and was the blow out model of Black Friday. It was the re-stage of the TomTom 130 (North American Maps) that would allow TomTom to price at blow out prices, without messing with their overall pricing strategy.
The TomTom XL 325 and XL 325S are a pair of wide screened units (4.3-inch) with US maps, MapShare, millions of Points of Interest, EasyPort mounting, easy and quick re-touring if you miss your turn, and for the "S" version Text to Speech. The units come with the "Latest Map Guarantee" which means that if they upgrade maps within 30-days of you getting your GPS, they will give you a free upgrade.
Garmin Nuvi 750 - $169 at WalMart
TomTom GO 740 LIVE Full Review
Garmin Nuvi 750 - $169 at WalMart
INRIX and ALK Technologies, announced that INRIX will power real-time traffic data in ALK Technologies popular CoPilot® Live™ v8 GPS navigation app for Apple iPhone, Google Android and Windows phones in North America. CoPilot is one of the 
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