HTC Touch Cruise (a.k.a Iolite) Announced, Chock-Full of GPSy Goodness

Last week we got a closer look at the HTC Iolite, highlighting a particularly mysterious footprint key at the bottom. Well, today the Touch Cruise has been announced, and we learn that the key is reserved for a little service called Footprints. Footprints allows users to quickly geotag their location with pictures, audio clips, and notes, as well as retrace their path. I’m a huge fan of geotagging, namely because it’s using GPS for something other than driving directions for a change, but the Touch Cruise handles that as well with a bundled car cradle. When locked in, the Touch Cruise changes its UI to something a little more driver-friendly. On the whole, this phone’s got some flavour to it – keep an eye out this Spring.

Specifications after the jump!

Key HTC Touch Cruise Specifications

• Size: 102 x 53.5 x 14.5mm
• Weight: 103 grams
• Connectivity: WCDMA/HSPA: 900/2100MHz. HSDPA 7.2 Mbps
• Operating system: Windows Mobile® 6.1 Professional
• Display: 2.8-inch TFT-LCD touch-sensitive screen with QVGA resolution
• Control panel: HTC TouchFLO™, 4-Way navigation wheel with Enter and HTC Footprints™ buttons
• Camera: 3.2 MP, with fixed focus
• Internal memory: 512 MB flash ROM, 256 MB RAM
• Expansion Slot: microSD™ memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
• Bluetooth: 2.0 with EDR
• Wireless: Wi-Fi 802.11b/g
• GPS: GPS/A-GPS
• Interface: HTC ExtUSB? (mini-USB 2.0 and audio jack in one)
• Battery: 1100 mAh
• Talk time: GSM: up to 400 minutes
• Standby time: GSM: up to two weeks
• Chipset: Qualcomm (NSDQ: QCOM)® MSM7225™, 528 MHz

[via HTC]