When the iPhone was launched there was really two competitors in the Smartphone market: Windows Mobile and Blackberry. Blackberry was aimed very much at email and the corporate market, whilst Microsoft’s Windows Mobile was for the techno savvy. Along came Apple with the iPhone and the App Store and iTunes and voila we have a mass market consumer product.

Apple decided to control the system as much as possible with single carrier agreements, a very closed development environment, allowing you only to load apps and music via the App Store and iTunes.

The ‘New Kid on the block’ is Android which is exactly the opposite. This has been adopted by T-Mobile, Sprint, and in a few days time Verizon Droid. The “I Don’t” advert for Droid highlights the restrictive features of the iPhone Platform.
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Yesterday hot on the heels of the iPhone OS 3.0 roll out was the introduction to the AppStore of a number of OS 3.0 specific applications. One of the first of these is Gokivo from Networks In Motion in the US AppStore.

The main points of interest in this app are: Turn by Turn Navigation, and a subscription pricing model.

Turn by Turn voice navigation has been banned by Apple up until the release of OS 3.0 when we heard from a number of the mainstream navigation brands saying they would have an app for the iPhone.  Well Networks in Motion seem to have the first one.

With the subscription pricing it costs $0.99 to buy which is quite reasonable, but then to actually use it you need to pay $9.99 a month. Not good if you want to use it every day, but not too bad if you are going on vacation and want it for a couple of weeks.

Networks In Motion is a well respected provider of Navigation solutions, particularly on mobile phones in the USA where they power the Verizon VZNavigator and a number of other white label navigation applications.

With integrated contact navigation and live traffic services this looks like an excellent start to navigation on the iPhone.  There are a few things that need to be found out about how the app works, are the maps downloaded or delivered over the air…   More details will follow.

The Networks in Motion press release follows:
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So having looked at the hardware for the new iPhones it is time to look at the software. For quite a while now the new iPhone OS 3.0 software has been in Beta and despite NDAs pretty much everything leaked about the functionality that would be included.

A couple of things that didn’t leak (or were not paid any attention) were items like Video, Voice Control, Access to Accessories, Voice memos, and the Nike+ interface.

For me the main features of the new OS3.0 software are:

• Copy and Paste
• Security
• Faster OS
• Video capture and editing
• Access to accessories
• More bluetooth protocols
• Personal Area Networking
• In App Purchase
• Push Notifications
• Access to Maps in the application
• Access to the iPod Library
• Streaming Video
• Compass support

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One of the big features that has been added to the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3G S has been tethering. This is where you connect your laptop (I was tempted to say MacBook) to your iPhone and use the iPhone as a modem to connect to the Internet.

I have to ask WHY??

I can understand the need to access the Internet wirelessly while you are out and about but why use the iPhone. There are some great deals right now where you can get USB stick modems for next to nothing (or just paying postage) and you can get a PAYG 3G SIM and get wireless access for about £2.00 a day or £10 a month. This is as cheap or cheaper than tethering your iPhone and you are not using any of your “unlimited” allowance.

If you think that is too expensive then why not just get a USB stick modem and put your iPhone SIM in it. Configure the APN correctly and you are online for no additional charge. It works great with my O2 iPhone SIM. OK you can’t take calls while you are using it but you can still send and receive Text Messages, and there is no hassle about paying extra for tethering.