Destinator 9 for iPhone

Back in January we saw a demonstration of Destinator 9 on the iPhone at CES. It has taken a few months but now it is available in the Apple AppStore for Western Europe. With a price tag of £30 ($50) it represents great value compared to Navigon at £70 and TomTom at £53, but is more comparable with ALK’s CoPilot at £36.

Destinator 9 is a fully featured Turn by Turn navigation system with voice guidance and featuring Navteq mapping. It also has iPod controls, easy to use POIs including creation of your own ‘StickyPOIs’ but seems to lack importing of custom POIs, and does not have support for Speed Cameras.

The full Destinator Press Release follows:

Destinator 9 for iPhone – Experience the Difference

At its core, Destinator 9 is a solid and reliable turn-by-turn navigation application featuring on-board NAVTEQ digital map data for Western Europe and a routing engine that exceeds performance benchmarks. In addition to a host of new features designed to get people to their destinations easily, quickly and safely, Destinator 9 takes the navigation experience to a new level by integrating additional valuable features in the GPS application. Integrated iPod controls, advanced voice guidance, GoogleTM Local Search, NavStrip™, and extensive POI listings are a few examples. Destinator makes it easier to find what you need and get there with less effort and stress. Also, Destinator taps into the new wave of social mapping with a feature that enables the user to send their location or favorite POI to a friend.

The Destinator application is designed specifically with the iPhone user in mind to make the user experience seamless and intuitive with the overall phone experience. Destinator seamlessly blends with the iPhone functions allowing the user to simply route from existing contacts or messages. The integrated iPod™ controls allow for access and control of music while in navigation mode. And, the intuitive NavStrip feature enables the user to navigate to their destination more easily with less “clicks”.

Destinator 9 is now available for Western Europe with superior map coverage for the following countries: Austria, Benelux, Denmark, Eire (Republic of Ireland), Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Greenland, Iceland, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, United Kingdom and more.

Destinator 9 is available at an introductory price of €39.99 for comprehensive coverage of Western Europe including the United Kingdom.

For more information, images and interactive demonstrations please visit www.destinator.com or visit our product page on YouTube at www.YouTube.com/DestinatorGPS.

Feature Highlights for the Destinator 9 iPhone Application:

-On Board NAVTEQ Maps:Providing Western Europe map access and directions regardless of your connection.

-Extensive POI Listings:Coverage of Western Europe includes over millions of on board points-of-interest that are always accessible without a data connection.

-NavStrip™:Convenient access to all of your navigation commands from one intuitive, touch-and-go strip.

-Voice-Guided Directions:Keep focused on the road ahead with easy to understand turn-by-turn voice guidance.

-Lane Assistance: Clear visual guidance to direct you to the right lane for your route.

-In-App iPod Controls: Select songs and control music while in navigation mode. -StickyPOI: Intuitive one-touch placement of points-of-interest that interest you.

-TapNGo: Simply press any point on the map and navigate to the location.

-Trip Planning: Able to plan multi-destination routes with a convenient trip planning function.

-2D or 3D Mode:Map is offered at your preferred perspective – 2D or 3D.

-Brilliant Map Displays:Crisply rendered maps provide clear guidance. -Contact Routing: Navigate to an address stored in your Contact list.

-Send-to-Friend: Send your current location or favorite POI to your friend.

-Speed Limits Warnings:Limits are conveniently posted on screen for your current location.

-Google Local Search:Nearby POIs are a click away and a cinch to navigate to.

This special offer pricing applies to both the iPhone app in the Apple AppStore and the Android app from Android Market. Happy Holidays!!!

The CoPilot Promotion PR:

Thanksgiving is always one of the busiest times on the roads and 2009 will be no exception. In fact AAA are forecasting an increase on 2009, with almost 40 million Americans travelling more than 50 miles over the weekend.

Travel easier this Thanksgiving – and beyond with CoPilot Live.

Magellan Raodmate for the iPhone

A second item on the same Press Release mentions a Premium Car Kit. This is an Active cradle for the iPhone with its own GPS receiver, internal amplifier and bluetooth hands-free. This is an adjustable design to allow the iPhone to be used with skins and cases in place. It is also compatible with the iPhone classic and iPod Touch enabling these devices to be used for navigation. At $129.99 it is slightly more expensive than the TomTom cradle ($119) and is expected to be shipping in December.

The initial mapping offered through the Apple AppStore includes USA, Canada and Puerto rico. In the future Western US, Eastern US and Europe will also be available.

Click here for the Magellan iPhone information page.

Magellan Roadmate for iPhone Screen

The Magellan Press Release follows:

MAGELLAN® COMPLETE TURN-BY-TURN NAVIGATION APP NOW AVAILABLE ON THE APP STORE

The Magellan RoadMate App (U.S. & Canada maps) is available for an introductory price of $79.99 from the App Store on iPhone and iPod touch devices or at http://www.itunes.com/appstore/. The MSRP for the car kit will be $129.99.

Navigon MobileNavigator

This release adds Text-To-Speech and iPod controls as well as some other minor changes. The Text To Speech allows the road names to be included in the navigation instructions giving the driver more confidence in the manoeuvre they are making. The iPod controls are also a very welcome feature as previously although you could set the iPod playing in the background if the playlist or album ended then you had to exit the Navigation application to change the music.

Also included in this release are: Location sharing, and automatic day/night mode switching.

The full Navigon Press Release follows:

NAVIGON Further Extends the Feature Set of its iPhone Navigation App
Second free update includes major additions such as spoken street names (text-to-speech), seamless integration of iPod functions, a location sharing feature and more

Hamburg/Germany, September 10, 2009 — NAVIGON AG, leading innovator in the navigation market, today announced availability of a second free update for the North American version of MobileNavigator for the iPhone. The update equips the NAVIGON app with a comprehensive set of innovative and sought after features.

The highly anticipated text-to-speech function lets the NAVIGON MobileNaviagtor announce street names in addition to turn-by-turn directions. It is the first on-board navigation app for the iPhone with this functionality. Instead of only stating “turn right”, the app informs the user to “turn right on to ‘Main Street’, enabling the driver to further concentrate on the road ahead and not become distracted looking for street signs. “With the addition of text-to-speech technology from SVOX, NAVIGON remains on the forefront of iPhone navigation options with the most solid feature set on the market,” said Gerhard Mayr, Vice-President Worldwide Mobile Phones & New Markets at NAVIGON. “SVOX offers high quality text-to-speech technology, characterized by a natural and clear sound as well as a unique polyglot capability – the same voice can speak multiple languages like a native speaker,“ said Eric Lehmann, Chief Sales Officer of SVOX.

NAVIGON, from the outset is committed to not only setting the industry standard for navigation capabilities on the iPhone, but also integrates iPhone-specific functionalities. The new update is the next step in this direction with seamless integration of iPod controls. Drivers can now enjoy the full range of iPod functionalities with a simple one-click from map access to artists, titles, albums, audio books, podcasts and playlist selections. The feature also takes advantage of the shuffle, and automatic playlist generating technology within iPod. The driver can listen to songs again or leave it to the device to generate a random selection.

A new location sharing function makes it convenient to meet-up with friends and acquaintances, on the go. Users can share their own location, an address or a point of interest (POI) such as a restaurant or museum via email. If the recipients are MobileNavigator users, a simple link-tap provides the exact address. The navigation software starts automatically when the link is activated and guides the user directly to the destination, without having to input locations, and waiting for the search results. In addition, the app routinely changes the maps colors switching it between Day and Night Mode determined by time and location. This guarantees optimal display visibility at all times and allows drivers to recognize the route as quickly as possible to improve orientation.

The MobileNavigator transforms any iPhone 3G, equipped with the new Apple OS 3.0 operating system, and any iPhone 3G S into a complete navigation device. It is the only iPhone navigation app on the market featuring Reality View™ Pro which displays 3D views of complex highway interchanges and exits helping drivers to orientate. Also unique are the branded POI’s along the route which make it easier to spot any points of interest that are on the way.

The NAVIGON solution sells for $89.99 in the Apple App Store and is equipped with maps of North America from NAVTEQ®. There are no subscription fees attached and no map downloads during navigation. The update is also already available for regional country versions of the MobileNavigator across Europe as well as for the Australian app.

For more information and FAQs, please visit: www.navigon.com/iphone.

Navigon MobileNavigator