Google Introduces Free GPS Navigation for Android 2.0

[xIGmanIx]

There is nothing stopping manufacturers licensing google's technology provided their pricing is fair, why reinvent the wheel when you can go with some one that has brand recognition and is proven?

It's a nice play by google but I don't think it will have a great impact on the market overall. As more cars come with integrated, and specialized, GPS navigation systems the desire for handheld units will start declining. There's an opportunity now but probably not 5-10 years from now.

When the next iPhone is released next summer it will be interesting to see how Apple raises their game (or doesn't).

 

[davidbrummy]

It's a nice play by google but I don't think it will have a great impact on the market overall. As more cars come with integrated, and specialized, GPS navigation systems the desire for handheld units will start declining. There's an opportunity now but probably not 5-10 years from now.

When the next iPhone is released next summer it will be interesting to see how Apple raises their game (or doesn't).

I have bought two cards in the last two years and each time time they wanted to charge over 2k for GPS. Until this changes there will be a handheld market. What will me interesting in the short term is how this will effect the sales of dedicated GPS units.

 

[badapple18]

yeah, well... if it works as well as the current google maps, apple has nothing to worry about.

maps gets things COMPLETELY wrong on my phone about 45% of the time.

so yeah, the idea is good... but i have zero confidence that something like this will work with any regularity.

all that looking things up on it's own? no way will that work consistently. or not any time in the near future, for sure.

65% of most statistics are made up on the spot!

 

[kernkraft]

Nice one, Google!

Google just showed Apple, who's the daddy (or, to be precise, who the daddy is).

 

[QuarterSwede]

I have bought two cards in the last two years and each time time they wanted to charge over 2k for GPS. Until this changes there will be a handheld market. What will me interesting in the short term is how this will effect the sales of dedicated GPS units.

Doesn't that sicken you since you can buy a top of the line Pioneer Headunit that has full screen navigation, Satellite radio, HD radio, iPod integration, Bluetooth connectivity, etc. for a lot less. Not only do you get more but the unit itself is far superior to the factory unit they stick in cars. Where's the bloody Pioneer/Alpine option GM, Ford, Audi, BMW, etc.!?

*I'll give Ford one thing: Sync seems to work incredibly well.

 

[ChazUK]

http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/28/google-navigation-video-hands-on-you-want-this/#comments

Google Navigation video hands-on: you want this

We apologize for being fanish, but Google has pulled off something with its new Navigation elements in Google Maps (or is it Google Maps in a Navigation app? It's hard to tell) that has serious ramifications for a navigation device industry used to charging money for functionality. The introduction of satellite view, a tasteful touch of street view (peep a still of your next turn, or see your destination), and of course regular stuff like spoken directions and street names, and Google's voice recognition applied to search (anywhere on the device just tap voice search and start your phrase with "navigate to") make this a pretty astonishing offering for what's essentially a free app with the purchase of an Android 2.0 device. The biggest worry here is that if you lose signal you won't be able to pull maps, but while there's no whole-map caching, it does cache a route when you enter it in, so as long as you don't stray too far from the beaten path you should be fine with a dropped signal here or there. But enough of our blather, check out a video walkthrough after the break.

I guess it does suck.

 

[Kahnyl]

I quit that video after 20 seconds of listen to that loud woman in the "background".

 

[ChazUK]

I quit that video after 20 seconds of listen to that loud woman in the "background".

She stops about 2:50 in. The most annoying voice ever.

 

[5855997]

1st: I am not sure if this is coming any time soon. Doesn't Apple like the 30+$ they get from every Navigon/TomTom etc. sale? If they bundle it for free (not looking at any deals they might got with Google) they miss big money.

2nd: If it has to download through your phones internet connection (over 3G when on the road) it might be ok for the USA where your phone plan covers the whole country you might travel. But in Europe, when you travel through many different countries with your car, no one really wants to pay any roaming costs. (Sure, it might cache some maps..but how much? The whole route? And what about you change your travelling plans out on the road? Then you're out of luck.)

So I am sticking happy to my West-European version of Navigon, which already has all maps of the cities I ever might drive through.

 

[davidbrummy]

Doesn't that sicken you since you can buy a top of the line Pioneer Headunit that has full screen navigation, Satellite radio, HD radio, iPod integration, Bluetooth connectivity, etc. for a lot less. Not only do you get more but the unit itself is far superior to the factory unit they stick in cars. Where's the bloody Pioneer/Alpine option GM, Ford, Audi, BMW, etc.!?

*I'll give Ford one thing: Sync seems to work incredibly well.

Everything about buying a car made me feel sick. Thankfully when I bought the Honda I did it mostly on line and was in the dealership for less than 60 mins. Still had people trying to quote one price on email and then add extras at the last moment.

 

[RazHyena]

Looks fascinating. I wants.

Now I guess we wait for Android to be released on a phone that isn't so damn ugly.

Why so ugly?

 

[str1f3]

I agree.. if apple doesn't stop playing silly games, then google will not allow this feature to be run on the iphone..

and the company that apple bought was going bankrupt, so it's more about hiring one person then purchasing a whole new company. I don't think apple can compete with google when it comes to maps...

sucks for iphone..

You have no idea of what's going on and what you're talking about. Google desperately wants their apps on the iPhone and equal in terms of performance to Android. Google does not make money on Android. They make money on search and ads. It does not help revenue if they're apps are only on Android. They want them on as many platforms as possible for search queries and to serve ads. Google's enemy is not Apple. It's MS who will try to push Bing along with maps with their own devices.

 

[Pwned]

Placebase

Apple bought that company in the summer, I wonder if they will be releasing their own navigation software soon?

 

[FearNo1]

Yep, I imagine as more android phones are sold, the less importance iphone apps will be for google...

I would bet this will not be available for iPhone. Now is where I think we will watch Google begin to move away from Apple, and offer more exclusive features. Next up will be Google OS for PC.

 

[chstr]

this is freaking colossal!!! googles going to take over the computer world. Google branded hardware and operating systems anyone????

 

[fat phil]

Hah voice navigation, no thanks! It'll probably send me driving off a cliff.

First time I tried to show off the iPhone's voice recognition, I said "Play Jack Johnson" (exactly as it said on the TV commercial), and it went ahead and dialled my ex girlfriend - who wasn't called Jack! (honest!).

Thankfully my wife has a great sense of humour. My ex, however, doesn't...

 

[bozzykid]

1st: I am not sure if this is coming any time soon. Doesn't Apple like the 30+$ they get from every Navigon/TomTom etc. sale? If they bundle it for free (not looking at any deals they might got with Google) they miss big money.

I doubt they are making very much money are apps that are that large in file size. The amount of network resources to handle downloading those apps is pretty large. What Apple wants is to make the iPhone desirable enough that people will use to along with MobileMe, etc. Apple wants to suck you into their ecosystem. Killing off the GPS competition on the App Store is of little importance to them.

 

[LagunaSol]

The two most impressive features:

- Talk to the device and say 'navigate to the King Tut exhibition in San Francisco'.
And the app a) figures out what you actually said, b) searches what 'King Tut' actually means c) searches for a Tutankhamun exhibition in San Francisco d) grabs its address and e) navigates you there.

If by "most impressive" you mean "a complete failure," then I agree with you.

Unfortunately, voice recognition remains more promise than practice. I gave up on voice recognition on the Google app on my iPhone after the first day, and the Voice Control feature on the iPhone is less than solid. I have little hope that the voice recognition on Google's nav app will reliably work the way you describe.

Hah voice navigation, no thanks! It'll probably send me driving off a cliff.

Here here! Wait, or was that...hear hear?

 

[aluren]

This is definitely good news. And it seems like Google has navigation technology that beats all the others with streetview, voice recognition, location database, and search function. Typing in the full address in the Navigon is extremely annoying. I should be able to search a map for the nearest Best Buy and have that automatically entered into the navigation app. We'll see how Google navi will be implemented into the iPhone, but for now, I just have one equation:

Garmin Nuvifone = FAIL

 

[xIGmanIx]

google has always been basic form over function in a lot of their apps and their color selections haven't always been the latest styling

Looks fascinating. I wants.

Now I guess we wait for Android to be released on a phone that isn't so damn ugly.

Why so ugly?

 

[ChazUK]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 1.5; en-gb; HTC Hero Build/CUPCAKE) AppleWebKit/528.5+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.2 Mobile Safari/525.20.1)

The two most impressive features:

- Talk to the device and say 'navigate to the King Tut exhibition in San Francisco'.
And the app a) figures out what you actually said, b) searches what 'King Tut' actually means c) searches for a Tutankhamun exhibition in San Francisco d) grabs its address and e) navigates you there.

If by "most impressive" you mean "a complete failure," then I agree with you.

Unfortunately, voice recognition remains more promise than practice. I gave up on voice recognition on the Google app on my iPhone after the first day, and the Voice Control feature on the iPhone is less than solid. I have little hope that the voice recognition on Google's nav app will reliably work the way you describe.

Hah voice navigation, no thanks! It'll probably send me driving off a cliff.

Here here! Wait, or was that...hear hear?

Did you see the video on engadget? It appears to work well!

 

[ImperialX]

As bad as Apple's relationship with Google is, I wouldn't be surprised if Google already submitted this App for the App Store to review. Google makes their money off advertising.

Apple will no doubt be extremely unhappy since they make like $30 for every copy of TomTom sold. Whether this app appears or not may very likely be up to Apple to decide. Just like Latitude and Google Voice, I have no doubt that Google will not be "the evil one", whether or not they appear on iPhone or not.

 

[broly78]

Read previous posts, this wouldn't matter, the route is downloaded and cached at the beginning of the trip.

Sure, good luck replanning the course when a road is blocked and you have no signal or there is a 3g network congestion.
And good luck also planning your car excursions while abroad.
For 100% reliability, a full set of offline maps is always the preferred choice, and many of us that don't want get screwed in the middle of a long road trip are gonna stick with that.
Thanks Google, but no.

 

[ChazUK]

Sure, good luck replanning the course when a road is blocked and you have no signal or there is a 3g network congestion.
And good luck also planning your car excursions while abroad.
For 100% reliability, a full set of offline maps is always the preferred choice, and many of us that don't want get screwed in the middle of a long road trip are gonna stick with that.
Thanks Google, but no.

That won't ever be a problem if you are on a good network will it?

 

[broly78]

That won't ever be a problem if you are on a good network will it?

3G coverage is getting better worldwide, but think about trips in the countryside or outside cities where there are plenty of areas with low or no signal, even with good network operators.
You might have to get a detour and unable to download the required data, which would suck badly.
Also, data connection is still a no-go abroad so forget about renting a car and use your navigation device on your next holiday trip.
In 10 years who knows, but today I think at least in navigation, apps which include maps are the only way to go.