TomTom Bows App For iPhone
By Amy Gilroy -- TWICE, 6/8/2009
San Francisco — TomTom introduced a long-awaited iPhone app due this summer that gives turn-by-turn spoken directions for the new iPhone 3G S.
Announced by TomTom co-founder and CTO Peter Frans Pauwels at the Apple Worldwide Developer’s Conference, the app, pricing unannounced, as will a new car mounting kit to be available at www.tomtom.com.
The mounting kit provides a speaker and microphone to the iPhone and allows it to mount on a windshield. It uses the TomTom’s current twist-and-lock mount that can fold up for carrying in your pocket. It also charges the iPhone and allows you to tilt the iPhone so it may adjust between landscape and portrait modes. The kit will not allow voice commands for inputting directions, however, according to TomTom marketing VP Tom Murray.
TomTom has not yet revealed whether the app will announce the street names of upcoming turns, nor whether it will provide HD Traffic. This latter feature is available in Europe and uses the two-way Internet connection in a device to track the user’s road speed as he drives and send out live traffic reports to all TomTom HD Traffic users. Murray said the new TomTom app will include IQ routes, a technology providing estimates on times of arrival based on historical traffic patterns for better accuracy.
TomTom does not have an exclusive arrangement to provide turn-by-turn apps for the iPhone, so theoretically other portable GPS makers could also sell iPhone App Store applications.
Garmin did not immediately respond to a TWICE inquiry on whether it will offer an iPhone app.
TomTom said its app will be sold in different packages with different country-wide or international maps at different prices to be announced.
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