Thursday, July 02, 2009

Puzzlement About AT&T Navigator for iPhone 3GS

Like about a bazillion other iPhone users, I received an email from AT&T this morning advertising their new spoken-word turn-by-turn GPS "Navigator" app for the iPhone. The app is free but the subscription costs ten bucks a month. What the hell? The iPhone already provides text-based turn-by-turn navigation using free Google maps. Current position is already calculated on-board the iPhone by fusing GPS, cell tower signals, surveyed Wi-Fi access points, and the new compass functionality. The Google maps even provide traffic conditions via those neat little green, yellow, and red ribbons on major streets. All we need is an app that turns the already-generated-for-free text into voice. Why on earth should we be expected to fork out yet another $10/month to AT&T? Will some brave programmer provide an app that we can download for the usual $0.99 that will provide this last step? Even $9.99 would be a relative bargain. Maybe the extra nine dollars would cover the needed ability to recalculate the route when I miss a turn or an off ramp. Whoever scratches this itch so is going to make a lot of money quickly.

2 comments:

Mike Marsh said...

In some areas Google maps aren't that great -- it's a matter of who provides them with mapping data for that region. This can be a big deal if Google isn't aware that, say, a particular road is one-way. Also, a lot of people don't think much of the timeliness of Google's traffic info. Granted, I have no idea how AT&T stacks up in these respects.

Unknown said...

kim dae jin

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