As was posted earlier on the forum, Navigon has finally come to the App Store - it's only for the maps of Europe (so far) but I expect to see North America and all the other continents released within the next week. It takes 1.65 GB (pretty typical size for downloading maps for an entire continent) of space on your iphone.
Price point for Navigon Europe? $94.99 USD. Not surprising, IMO. You figure North America will probably run around the same price. And this ought to give us a hint as to how much brand-leader TomTom will be asking for. Back when they unveiled their app for the iphone, I thought it could run as low as $50+ and as high as $100 - I'm now leaning towards the higher end of $100. Sygic IDA, which offers a similar type of GPS model as TomTom and Navigon will most likely also be asking for $50-100.
Gokivo offers a pay-as-you-go monthly subscription for $10 (for the USA). This is pretty standard for other monthly mobile GPS subscription services like VZW Navigator. Gokivo is the first to offer this in the App Store (in addition to in-app purchasing) and they won't be the last; this is only the beginning. You can expect many other services (beyond GPS apps: videogames, camera apps, etc.) to do the same. When NIM's competitor Telenav finally arrives in the App Store, they will also offer a $10 monthly subscription for their services. Don't be surprised if services like Gokivo and Telenav begin to also offer a third price point option: $2.99 for one-day use only. We'll see.
My point is: in the new 3.0 era, fully-featured TBT GPS applications are not cheap. And every GPS service named in this post is of excellent, high quality -- but we're going to have to pay for it. We asked for this; to have access to the same features that Blackberry, WM, and Palm users have had for YEARS. Monthly subscription services like Telenav and Gokivo will allow you to use their cool apps and get real-time traffic delays and constantly updated maps, but you're going to have to pay $10 a month - not $1 a month. From the other GPS model of service, TomTom and Navigon will be asking for probably around $100 to download their maps onto your phone - not $20. I wouldn't be surprised if TomTom also offers a yearly upgrade fee to update their maps, or they might offer smaller upgrades (ie: buying maps for other countries/continents) - again, we will see a lot more of in-app purchasing. You get the drift. Speaking for myself, if a GPS app is of excellent quality, I am willing to pay up to $100+ for it (dedicated GPS PNDs can cost several hundreds of dollars) - I just hope other iphone users are mentally prepping themselves for the realistic prices they're going to be seeing - GPS is not cheap.
As a side-note I should mention: if you're really strapped for cash (as many people are in this economy), there is still the first pseudo-TBT GPS app of them all: G-Map East/West (last I checked, they offered or were in the process of offering maps for all the continents on the planet), which is incredibly, still $24.99. The upgrade for 3.0 will feature full voice/text to speech, etc - at a price point of $25 only! But you'd have to buy it NOW before Xroad increases (as I think they'll have to to stay competitive) their price in the near future. They were the first ones to appear in the App Store, hence the low price - with all the other ones popping up now...well...you get the idea...
Price point for Navigon Europe? $94.99 USD. Not surprising, IMO. You figure North America will probably run around the same price. And this ought to give us a hint as to how much brand-leader TomTom will be asking for. Back when they unveiled their app for the iphone, I thought it could run as low as $50+ and as high as $100 - I'm now leaning towards the higher end of $100. Sygic IDA, which offers a similar type of GPS model as TomTom and Navigon will most likely also be asking for $50-100.
Gokivo offers a pay-as-you-go monthly subscription for $10 (for the USA). This is pretty standard for other monthly mobile GPS subscription services like VZW Navigator. Gokivo is the first to offer this in the App Store (in addition to in-app purchasing) and they won't be the last; this is only the beginning. You can expect many other services (beyond GPS apps: videogames, camera apps, etc.) to do the same. When NIM's competitor Telenav finally arrives in the App Store, they will also offer a $10 monthly subscription for their services. Don't be surprised if services like Gokivo and Telenav begin to also offer a third price point option: $2.99 for one-day use only. We'll see.
My point is: in the new 3.0 era, fully-featured TBT GPS applications are not cheap. And every GPS service named in this post is of excellent, high quality -- but we're going to have to pay for it. We asked for this; to have access to the same features that Blackberry, WM, and Palm users have had for YEARS. Monthly subscription services like Telenav and Gokivo will allow you to use their cool apps and get real-time traffic delays and constantly updated maps, but you're going to have to pay $10 a month - not $1 a month. From the other GPS model of service, TomTom and Navigon will be asking for probably around $100 to download their maps onto your phone - not $20. I wouldn't be surprised if TomTom also offers a yearly upgrade fee to update their maps, or they might offer smaller upgrades (ie: buying maps for other countries/continents) - again, we will see a lot more of in-app purchasing. You get the drift. Speaking for myself, if a GPS app is of excellent quality, I am willing to pay up to $100+ for it (dedicated GPS PNDs can cost several hundreds of dollars) - I just hope other iphone users are mentally prepping themselves for the realistic prices they're going to be seeing - GPS is not cheap.
As a side-note I should mention: if you're really strapped for cash (as many people are in this economy), there is still the first pseudo-TBT GPS app of them all: G-Map East/West (last I checked, they offered or were in the process of offering maps for all the continents on the planet), which is incredibly, still $24.99. The upgrade for 3.0 will feature full voice/text to speech, etc - at a price point of $25 only! But you'd have to buy it NOW before Xroad increases (as I think they'll have to to stay competitive) their price in the near future. They were the first ones to appear in the App Store, hence the low price - with all the other ones popping up now...well...you get the idea...
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