TomTom and Navigon Bringing Turn-by-Turn GPS Car Navigation to iPhone

[skye12]

Pricing will be critical. They should price it no higher than a hundred imo.
Why? It will kill the car device gps market (whap garmin) and give them huge penetration.

 

[kas23]

Pricing will be critical. They should price it no higher than a hundred imo.
Why? It will kill the car device gps market (whap garmin) and give them huge penetration.

Good point. I can see them charging $60-$75 for the software and then over-charging for the car-mount. A plastic car-mount for about $40-$50 will be mostly profit as they likely cost under $5 to actually produce. I can't see the car-mount plus software in the $140-$150 range. Why buy it then? A stand alone unit would be cheaper.

 

[kas23]

Maybe, but none of these are as small as the iPhone are they?

I have both iPhone and Tom Tom (which is a very good satnav) but I still have to carry around an extra bulky item.

Why does size matter? Where are you carrying around your GPS unit? I would just attach it to my windshield or dash and that's it. It would then be placed in a concealed place while not in the car.

 

[tivoboy]

combo

I think the combo will be more like 199$, at LEAST 99$ for the SW.

There might be a special coming out of the gates, like 169-179$ for a few weeks, months.

But, the combo won't be less than these prices, IMHO.

 

[tivoboy]

mount

Good point. I can see them charging $60-$75 for the software and then over-charging for the car-mount. A plastic car-mount for about $40-$50 will be mostly profit as they likely cost under $5 to actually produce. I can't see the car-mount plus software in the $140-$150 range. Why buy it then? A stand alone unit would be cheaper.

I think the mount, connector (which has to be licensed), gps chip, gps antenna and engineering applied is going to COST TT much more than 5$. It is probably for them a lower margin product, hoping and probably rightly assuming that buyers will be buying the TT SW to go with it, and therefore getting them on at least annual or bi-annual subscriptions of the SW.

 

[bbotte]

Well if I have to wait longer than this week, I'm spending my money elsewhere.

 

[Drag'nGT]

That's the good and bad about knowing something new is coming but don't know when.

 

[SlavKO]

That's the good and bad about knowing something new is coming but don't know when.

Exactly...I keep checking this thread every few days hoping for more info about a release date.

 

[DELLsFan]

Exactly...I keep checking this thread every few days hoping for more info about a release date.

Me too ... although I did sign up at the TomTom site with a presumption THEY would email me too.

 

[bbotte]

Me too ... although I did sign up at the TomTom site with a presumption THEY would email me too.

I would take any info at this time such as: "Coming July 30th" or whatever, just say something......

 

[mschwartz]

I would take any info at this time such as: "Coming July 30th" or whatever, just say something......

I wonder if they are re-evaluating the price points based upon what AT&T and TeleNav seem to be doing with a subscription based approach.

The comments on the AT&T/TeleNav product for the iPhone have been generally positive so far. I think that TT and Garmin (presuming that the latter has something in the works) risk losing business if they don't jump in with something pretty soon. Whether it is to the aforementioned product or stand-alone GPS units.

BTW, I like your Steve McQueen Le Mans avatar. Along with Grand Prix, it is one of my all time favorite racing movies.

 

[rjohnstone]

Good point. I can see them charging $60-$75 for the software and then over-charging for the car-mount. A plastic car-mount for about $40-$50 will be mostly profit as they likely cost under $5 to actually produce. I can't see the car-mount plus software in the $140-$150 range. Why buy it then? A stand alone unit would be cheaper.

I agree.
I'm not going to buy any add-on product for my iPhone that costs almost as much as the phone.

It's a plastic mount and software.
If they went subscription based, $40 - $50 tops plus a reasonable monthly fee.
Non-subscription, $75 tops.
Anything more than that and I'll just keep a regular GPS unit in my car.

 

[anim8or]

I agree.
I'm not going to buy any add-on product for my iPhone that costs almost as much as the phone.

It's a plastic mount and software.
If they went subscription based, $40 - $50 tops plus a reasonable monthly fee.
Non-subscription, $75 tops.
Anything more than that and I'll just keep a regular GPS unit in my car.

The funny thing is that one of the main aims of the iPhone i to reduce the amount of devices that a person has to carry around... ie not having to carry a phone, an ipod, a portable gaming system and now a GPS unit in your car....

I dont think people who already own a GPS unit should be thinking of buying any GPS software for their iPhone.

While i hope that the prices are not as inflated as we all are guessing I guess its just what we have to expect for the convenience!

 

[diamond.g]

I agree.
I'm not going to buy any add-on product for my iPhone that costs almost as much as the phone.

It's a plastic mount and software.
If they went subscription based, $40 - $50 tops plus a reasonable monthly fee.
Non-subscription, $75 tops.
Anything more than that and I'll just keep a regular GPS unit in my car.

Eh, TomTom Navigator for PDAs typically cost between 150 and 300 dollars. So I wouldn't be surprised if it is over 99 bucks.

 

[Manic Mouse]

I really, REALLY hope they don't go with a subscription model. This is a deal breaker for me. Offering the app for free and then charging for whatever maps a user may need (and thereafter map updates) seems much more elegant and sensible to me.

 

[bbotte]

I really, REALLY hope they don't go with a subscription model. This is a deal breaker for me. Offering the app for free and then charging for whatever maps a user may need (and thereafter map updates) seems much more elegant and sensible to me.

agreed, I'm not paying a monthly fee, my AT$T (<-- Pun) Bill is large enough per month. I don't need additional monthly charges.

 

[croy]

I wish they would hurry up & release this app already! I also signed up to their newsletter on the website, but never received any information yet.

A release date/price would be nice TomTom....

 

[mschwartz]

The latest from TomTom - still lacking details...

...Other than suggesting that they will not take a subscription based approach.

This still does not satisfy those who are concerned with the initial pricing of the software and maps, the pricing of the hardware and the pricing of map updates, all of which can end up being substantially expensive over a period of time of use.

Given the size of the initial app/map download (~1 Gb), you had better have an unlimited data plan or a good WiFi connection.

http://www.macworld.com/article/141539/2009/07/tomtomiphoneupdate.html

Over a two year time period (a reasonable device life) the subscription for AT&T's app would be around $240 U.S. and that includes map updates and traffic. That is competitive with the purchase price for a lot of the stand alone GPS units that have lifetime traffic included.

It will be interesting to see where TomTom's pricing comes to and whether it includes things like traffic, or will that be another paid for extra. Traffic is not mentioned at all in the above article.

I know a lot of folks don't like subscription models, but one has to compare pricing over time to be fair. One way or another, you are going to pay somebody a fair amount of money. All of them (AT&T, TomTom, Garmin, etc.) are in business to provide products and services at a fair profit.

How will TomTom's pricing compare and what if any other functional differences will be there that might outweigh any pricing advantage of one application over the other.

 

[Manic Mouse]

Over a two year time period (a reasonable device life) the subscription for AT&T's app would be around $240 U.S. and that includes map updates and traffic. That is competitive with the purchase price for a lot of the stand alone GPS units that have lifetime traffic included.

Except that all they're doing in the iPhone's case is providing software. Your $240 for the stand alone unit includes the price of manufacturing, packing and shipping a unit to you along with the software.

The iPhone app should cost significantly LESS than a stand-alone unit, not the same as considering all the GPS company is providing is software.

Of course companies sometimes don't work based on logic, I recently purchased a physical copy of Patapon 2 for my PSP which cost less than the digital download. Despite the fact that they have to make the disc and packaging, transport it, and sell it at a lower price to the retailer. Ridiculous!

 

[LethalWolfe]

Except that all they're doing in the iPhone's case is providing software. Your $240 for the stand alone unit includes the price of manufacturing, packing and shipping a unit to you along with the software.

The iPhone app should cost significantly LESS than a stand-alone unit, not the same as considering all the GPS company is providing is software.

The expensive part is the software though, not the GPS hardware. I mean, pretty much every phone made in the past few years has GPS hardware. Current solutions for mobile phones costs around $100 for the software.


Lethal

 

[mschwartz]

Except that all they're doing in the iPhone's case is providing software. Your $240 for the stand alone unit includes the price of manufacturing, packing and shipping a unit to you along with the software.

The iPhone app should cost significantly LESS than a stand-alone unit, not the same as considering all the GPS company is providing is software.

Of course companies sometimes don't work based on logic, I recently purchased a physical copy of Patapon 2 for my PSP which cost less than the digital download. Despite the fact that they have to make the disc and packaging, transport it, and sell it at a lower price to the retailer. Ridiculous!

I think that you overestimate the HW related cost versus the R&D cost for the software. Shipping and packaging are negligible.

Also, one thing that I realized that I left out is that most standalone units have a cost associated with getting map updates. So that would be an additional perhaps $100 to $200 over a two year time frame, depending upon the particulars and whether or not you perhaps got a deal for free updates.

The other consideration is convenience. You pay a premium for a laptop over a desktop for the convenience of portability. You pay a significant premium for a laptop that even comes close to desktop performance (such as my 17 inch unibody MBP with upgraded CPU and HD).

What sort of monetary value can you associate with not having to carry around yet another device? That's a personal issue that we all have to decide for ourselves and applies whether one is looking at TomTom or the subscription based applications.

Somewhere, presumably TomTom is making some marketplace assumptions regarding its pricing model for the initial purchase and the ongoing costs of updates. They of course have to evaluate the likelihood that it would be competitive with subscription based approaches as well as standalone units.

That is a value proposition that we all get to assess for ourselves, once they actually get around to putting out details, presuming that some proportion of us don't give up by then and go with other alternatives. The longer they wait, the greater the loss of sales opportunities for them.

 

[Manic Mouse]

I think that you overestimate the HW related cost versus the R&D cost for the software. Shipping and packaging are negligible.

Also, one thing that I realized that I left out is that most standalone units have a cost associated with getting map updates. So that would be an additional perhaps $100 to $200 over a two year time frame, depending upon the particulars and whether or not you perhaps got a deal for free updates.

The other consideration is convenience. You pay a premium for a laptop over a desktop for the convenience of portability. You pay a significant premium for a laptop that even comes close to desktop performance (such as my 17 inch unibody MBP with upgraded CPU and HD).

What sort of monetary value can you associate with not having to carry around yet another device? That's a personal issue that we all have to decide for ourselves and applies whether one is looking at TomTom or the subscription based applications.

Somewhere, presumably TomTom is making some marketplace assumptions regarding its pricing model for the initial purchase and the ongoing costs of updates. They of course have to evaluate the likelihood that it would be competitive with subscription based approaches as well as standalone units.

That is a value proposition that we all get to assess for ourselves, once they actually get around to putting out details, presuming that some proportion of us don't give up by then and go with other alternatives. The longer they wait, the greater the loss of sales opportunities for them.

Personally I would argue that it's more of an inconvenience to have GPS on your phone rather than in a unit. You don't really carry a stand-alone device around with you, you put it in the car and keep it there. With a phone it could kill battery life. The only substantial advantage to having GPS on your phone, IMO, would be a lower price since they don't have to provide any hardware. If it's no cheaper you might as well buy a stand-alone unit and not have to burn your battery life on phone or buy a load of peripherals to keep it charged in the car.

But that's just me, maybe others would rather have it on their phone than a stand-alone unit. However if the TomTom app costs more than 60% of a device then I'll simply buy a device and save space and battery on my phone, and have less swapping and changing to do when I get in the car. £60 is probably about my limit.

 

[tivoboy]

connector

Don't forget, I think apple has upped their charge to USE the dock connector API to 15$?

 

[chimpboy74]

Not as I understand it.
If I authorise another computer with my itunes account then any purchases made on that account will happily download for free on that computer!?!

The limit is 5 computers?

Am I wrong here? The only block I see is if TT do some sort of activation that requires a connection to the internet, but so many apps don't do that so i am not sure why they would? Just a thought.

Is this correct?

Can I authorise my mates PC and let him download the navigon software (that I have bought) for free?

or is his iphone connecte to his account so will not show in his app list on PC when he syncs? He wants the tomtom but I have said the navigon is worth a punt so he asked if he could borrow my phone ( no dice pal) but if we could work this he can give it a proper go.

 

[jazz1]

...Other than suggesting that they will not take a subscription based approach.

This still does not satisfy those who are concerned with the initial pricing of the software and maps, the pricing of the hardware and the pricing of map updates, all of which can end up being substantially expensive over a period of time of use.

Given the size of the initial app/map download (~1 Gb), you had better have an unlimited data plan or a good WiFi connection.

http://www.macworld.com/article/141539/2009/07/tomtomiphoneupdate.html

Over a two year time period (a reasonable device life) the subscription for AT&T's app would be around $240 U.S. and that includes map updates and traffic. That is competitive with the purchase price for a lot of the stand alone GPS units that have lifetime traffic included.

It will be interesting too see where TomTom's pricing comes to and whether it includes things like traffic, or will that be another paid for extra. Traffic is not mentioned at all in the above article.

I know a lot of folks don't like subscription models, but one has to compare pricing over time to be fair. One way or another, you are going to pay somebody a fair amount of money. All of them (AT&T, TomTom, Garmin, etc.) are in business to provide products and services at a fair profit.

How will TomTom's pricing compare and what if any other functional differences will be there that might outweigh any pricing advantage of one application over the other.

I read the article. Frankly unless the total package including software, extra hardware, and no monthly subscription happen why wouldn't I stick with my TomTom One 3rd Edition? Let it fry on my dash I say and save the iPhone. I guess if the total package wasn't to expensive it might tempt me. Maybe I'll be wowed, but if there is any "wow" in the package they are keeping it quiet.