Yesterday the latest iPhone navigation app to hit the Apple App Store was Magellan RoadMate US and Canada. This is a full featured Turn by Turn application, including advanced features such as text to speech, lane assist, and roadsigns. With mapping provided by Navteq it also supports a Pedestrian Mode and 3D landmarks. It also has in-app iPod controls. At an introductory price of $79.99 it is cheaper than Navigon and TomTom’s apps.
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. Continue reading »
Navigon have updated their navigation application for the second time and once again the update is free to existing users.
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 Navigon iPhone Navigation application has been in the iTunes App store for some time now. Although this is a good seller it is not so useful if you have no way to mount the iPhone in your car. There have been a number of very good third party mounts available for some time now, but nothing from any of the software manufacturers until now!
Whilst I was at the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin I met with the guys from Navigon who told me about a new mount that is to be available in October. This mount is based on the award winning PND mount with an interchangeable holder for the iPhone. Whilst it is not an active mount (having an integral power connector) it does come with a cigar lighter power adapter and charging cable. Continue reading »
There is an abundance of cases for the iPhone available varying in quality from cheap plastic to expensive leather ones. The range of cases from Trexta fit into the upper price range but are justified by the quality feel of the real leather used to manufacture them.
Trexta are a new company with manufacturing based in Turkey and also China. They are creating a worldwide distribution network and the cases will soon have a quality reputation rivalling that of Krussell or Proporta. The price ranges from about £20 through to the top of the range models at about £70. Continue reading »
One of the more unusual iPhone accessories on show at IFA was the Vestel TV with iPhone Dock. This has a 19″ screen with the iPhone dock on the stand and comes in a number of colour variants . The TV has built in software to recognise and connect to the iPhone to provide AV services. Unfortunately this didn’t work on the one I tried very well. The iPhone claimed it was not compatible, then the TV hung when trying to connect to the iPhone. Continue reading »
Hama the popular aftermarket accessory provider has 2 games grips for your iPhone. This week saw the the IFA Consumer Electronics show in Berlin, Germany. At the show Hama had a huge stand, most of which was for trade buyers only, but they did have some neat gadgets on display outside.
The best of the iPhone ones were games grips for the iPhone. They had 2 on display one a traditional shoot-em-up type grip, the other a racing steering wheel. Although neither of these grips offer any additional control features they do allow the iPhone to be firmly secured providing the freedom and confidence to be more aggressive during gameplay. Continue reading »
There are a lot of race car fans out there, and the pinnacle of car racing is Formula 1. Currently the 2009 season has been dominated by Brawn. Now is your chance to drive a virtual Brawn F1 car and experience the magic of Ross Brawn and his engineering team with the Brawn GP Racing iPhone Game developed by FISHLABS.
Not only do you get the gameplay you also have the chance to win a real Mercedes SL sports car. Check out www.brawngpcontest.com.
The game is available on the Apple AppStore for $3.99 or £2.39.
The iPhone Dev Team are continually playing cat and mouse with the Apple developers providing access to an open platform and the ability to use any SIM in the iPhone. This is termed as Jailbreaking and Unlocking. Although they had perfected the process for iPhone OS3.0 on the iPhone 3GS they were not going to release it until Apple launched the OS3.1 software. This is because Apple would work out the vulnerability used and close it. The release was pre-empted by the purplera1n jailbreak release using the same vulnerability so there was no reason not to release it.
There are 3 basic steps to Jailbreaking and Unlocking your iPhone 3GS, all of which are pretty simple and can easily be performed by anyone who is reasonably computer literate. I did this on my Macbook Pro. I found it really handy to have WiFi connectivity to download the unlock application over the air.
Warning Before you start this process be aware that you could potentially ‘brick’ your iPhone and this is a risk that you must assume yourself. There is no responsibility or comeback on any of the sites or application developers. Continue reading »
Envivio have launched a hardare platform for the delivery of live video feeds to the iPhone. Whist not directly applicable to the device it is interesting to see what is going on with the behind-the-scenes infrastructure. This announcement allows for live streaming of encrypted video to your iPhone.
A typical use could be at an event such as a motor race, horse race, or other sporting event where the live video can be streamed over WiFi or even wireless.
The Envivio press release:
Envivio and Telemak Partner to Provide One Stop Shopping for Mobile TV, Web TV and iPhone Operations
From System Sales to Complete Managed Headend Operations, Offers Solutions to Deliver any Content to any Device
Brussels and Paris – June 23, 2009 – Envivio Inc. and Telemak today announced that the companies have reached an agreement that addresses the content encoding and distribution needs of mobile operators, broadcasters and internet service providers. Under the agreement, Telemak will sell, integrate and support Envivio products to its customers. Telemak is also deploying Envivio mobile TV and web TV headend solutions at its own operations center in Belgium. The installation includes Envivio 4Caster™ C4 convergence encoding solutions and the new Envivio iLiveTV™ solution for the Apple iPhone.
