Nokia Free Navigation on Mobile Too - So What?

Nokia announced on Thursday that they will be offering free navigation capabilities on their smart phones too after the same announcement rocked the GPS standalone world when Google offered their innovative navigation App on Android phones.

"So, What?" you ask. Nokia isn't in the US, Navigation on smart phones stink anyway? this might just be the tipping point for the mobile phone and stand alone GPS world.

Big Share Player Goes to Free Navigation - Nokia has a huge share of the mobile phone market globally, especially in Europe, maybe someone can dig that up and post it below. Google has a reasonable share in the US of the smart phone market and growing fast. Between the two, they will start to rival Apple and the iPhone's share. While Apple isn't known for following, they might just fold in a Navigation program for free to blunt competition's point of differentiation.

Free Navigation? - It costs money to get maps, but you could crowdsource them like WAZE does, or pay for services with ads on the GPS like Garmin does.

Phone Based Navigation Comes of Age - I was impressed and continue to be impressed by the navigation capabilities that can be crammed onto my iPhone. The screen is passable for its size, and the program features surpass entry level devices. With the buildt-in internet connection advanced features can be more easily created. Advanced search, traffic flow data, pre-loaded maps, easy connection to my address book, text to speech? Yes, they are all in there. these aren't the basic days of the early version Verizon VZ Navigator; this is advanced stuff.

Apple Buys a GPS Player? - Maybe this user experience needs to be owned by Apple in order to create a more innovative capability? There are a dozen reasons to think not, but as Apple and Google start to square off, the move might make more and more sense. TomTom? - if the stand alone market is going to die, do you really want a to buy a leader in the space? They might have a lock on a lot of the technologies that are helping build a better GPS: Map provider TeleAtlas, a large installed base of units for historical speed collection, and more importantly the technology to deal with the data. Companies are already collecting GPS probe data from iPhones like Inrix to help create their ever more detailed maps of traffic situations. Apple could buy a well known phone navigation provider that can dovetail well into their system, like TeleNav who also displays the complex innovative technology to fold a lot of into into cars- like on the new Ford Sync platform.

Death of the Stand Alone GPS? - I think not, at least for now. While people are predicting the dire end of the stand alone GPS, I don't see it for a while. So while everyone might jump on the smart phone navigation bandwagon, smart phones still have a low market share in the US; hovering in the 20 - 30% range. So, for about 60+ million US households they aren't even a player. So while smart phone owners may have been early adopters of the $1,000 Nuvi when it was introduced, they have moved on but with the advent of $100 GPS units, a whole new market has developed. Until the smartphone plans are affordable by a majority of the population, the standalone GPS will be around. Now that may only be the next major market shift away, but I expect it's still a ways off from here.

January 25, 2010

Nokia Free Navigation on Mobile Too - So What?