Confirmed? TomTom’s iPhone GPS Car mount will work with iPod touch, as well as 3rd party navigation apps
Our good friends over at Mac4ever had a sit down with Yann Lafargue, who handles PR for TomTom, and were able to confirm a couple pretty interesting things about TomTom’s forthcoming GPS car kit. It has been known for some time that the car kit was more than a simple mount and charger – it also includes a built in GPS unit designed to replace the iPhone’s somewhat more flaky GPS. Lafargue confirmed many people’s suspicions/hopes by announcing that thanks to the built-in GPS on the cradle, it will work with the iPod touch, thus turning it into a GPS unit – no iPhone required. (It should be noted however that at the moment the official Tunes listing for the TomTom app states it is only compatible with the iPhone).
But perhaps most surprising is the revelation that TomTom says their cradle’s GPS will also work with third party GPS applications. This is a little surprising as the increased accuracy of their cradle would seem to be the big selling point for TomTom’s unit, but perhaps TomTom is looking to make its money on the iPhone through hardware sales moreso than software. No word yet on which apps will be supported or how they would go about tapping into TomTom’s more accurate GPS.
Thanks to faithful Macenstein reader Arnaud for the tip!
this is friggin awesome! this means i can use this on my 1st Gen iPhone!
but i wonder why they are insistent to mention using the cradle with the 1st Gen or iPod Touch.
i also wonder if the TomTom software on the iPhone 3G/3GS will work without the cradle.
TomTom will make a fortune from this technique, i’m interested – and i’m a Garmin Nuvi owner!
Do they mean compatible as in the extra-gps magic will work with Navigon and friends through sticking itself in the middle of the GPS SDK whenever it’s plugged in, or just that it’ll work to hold your iPhone so you can use Navigon while it’s in the holder? Obviously the latter isn’t all that exciting compared to the former 🙂
Course, if it is true, then that might mean that the cost is going to be big $$ as they’ll basically be selling a GPS hardware unit without a screen or the main guts, and not guaranteeing the extra $99 sale of the software.
so the app on the apple store is there for 99 bux. but will that work alone with out the cradle? if you buy the cradle will that come with a copy of the iphone app?
Come on Doc we need to know. Then i will not need to leave my gps in the car, i can take it with me in my pocket.
Unfortunately the TomTom cradle is of absolutely no use to me given that it does not appear to have a dock pass-thru. That means if I want to use the cradle I cannot use the car integration kit I have installed. I’ve been very happy with my Navigon experience so far, so I think I’ll be sticking with that. If the TomTom cradle improved GPS performance and still let me use my car integration kit to play music through my car stereo then I would have highly considered it.
Do you have to have the TomTom app on your iPhone to use the cradle? I have CoPilot on mine which works great, but I wouldn’t mind purchaing the TomTom cradle for the added GPS and handsfree!!!!!!!!!!!!
Any views?
What i would love to see is actually the reverse:
Get the TomTom iPhone app work with MY third party GPS that i already use on my Nokia N70 thru Bluetooth.
Unfortunately, they have taken that option out on the new iPhone app.
I guess the money is in the hardware sales, as the article implies 🙁
TomTom needs to add bluetooth capability to the app so I can use my third party GPS that I already own. This was a feature in the Navigator 5 software for Treo. They need to add it back in for iPhone. Furthermore, TomTom already sells a bluetooth GPS, so if it’s hardware sales they are worried about, they can always push their Bluetooth GPS product as well as their car kit.
The article stated that, “it will work with the iPod touch”, but has anyone really tested this theory ?
Does this ipod touch has the ability to use satellites or signal to relay information by way of gps?
@Matt — I’ve been working with TomTom on this car kit, and yes, it has been designed and tested specifically for the iPod Touch.
You’re right: the iPod Touch does not have built-in GPS capabilities, so this is why it needs to be connected to the iPod car kit (which has a built-in GPS-receiver) to function properly.
Sounds cool, but the mount and app coming to over $200 for a stripped down gps with a tiny screen doesn’t sound that great for 2g & touch owners when a featured rich gps with traffic, Bluetooth & msn with 4.3 screen can be had for less.