Tuesday, June 30. 2009

NAVTEQ's Mobile Traffic App Update

You may have missed yesterday's press release from NAVTEQ noting an update to its traffic information app for mobile phones (any with a browser) for free. There are, per C|net some unobtrusive ads, and the navigation is "interesting." The "east" and "west" links to slide the map one way or the other, are not in their typical orientation.

It's hard to imagine that users really want one app for finding directions or local services and another for traffic information. I'm hopeful this is simply a way to get the word out that this sort of functionality (and detail) should be embedded in other apps, a la "Intel Inside," though NAVTEQ uses "NAVTEQ onboard."

Thursday, May 21. 2009

Nokia Exec: Only Google, Nokia have the Money for the GeoWeb

The Nokia Exec in question is Michael Halbherr, who runs Nokia’s maps platform. He made that statement (in some form) in an interview with an FT blogger, Richard Waters. The post goes on to examine what Nokia has to do to be come competitive with Google: basically, become a platform provider.

Wednesday, May 13. 2009

Did NAVTEQ Really Launch a "Rival" to Google Maps?

NAVTEQ's PR from yesterday noted a new company beta website that highlights the company's data offerings. Part of it (the main feature actually) is a routing tool using NAVTEQ and Europa Technologies data (at least in my geography).

TechRadar suggested the "rival" issue in its headline: "Navteq launches Google Maps rival Beta site offers advanced road navigation options."

So, is it a real rival?

Friday, April 17. 2009

Nokia Announces Poor Earnings; NAVTEQ Revenues Down

The good news? Nokia is revving up to compete in the touch screen phone space against Apple. The bad news? Worst quartely profits in 10 years. And, in our little corner of geospatial: Recently acquired NAVTEQ "saw sales fall by 36% as people bought fewer maps and as other vendors signed up fewer devices to use the service."

- Rethink Wireless
- New York Times
- Earnings PR

Tuesday, April 7. 2009

Podcast: Any Game Changers in LBS Yet?

Many announcements related to location-based services came out of the CTIA show last week, including winners of the NAVTEQ LBS Challenge. Were any truly game changing? Our editors look at the current state of LBS and what may be ahead.


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Read the show notes

Missed any podcasts? Want to subscribe via iTunes, Yahoo, etc? Here's the index with all the info.

Wednesday, March 18. 2009

iPhone Turn by Turn Apps Allowed: But Don't Use Google Data

There were lots of great things in Tuesday's announcement from Google about the new OS, version 3.0 for the iPhone. Per David Pogue the new release due this summer for all platforms (free or small fee) covers all the "chronic" problems.

Those developers interested in putting maps in their apps are in luck. They can now embed maps in applications and access many of the features found in the Google Maps iPhone application.

That's great but one big frustration for users and developers has been the limitation on "turn by turn" directions; until this release they were not allowed. Now, they are, BUT you have to use "your own" data, not Google's. David Pogue puts it this way in a blog post:

Turn-by-turn directions. Programmers can now create GPS programs with turn-by-turn directions—as long as they don’t use Google’s wonderful map information. Thanks to some dumb legal restrictions, they have to supply their own map data.