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TomTom bringing GPS navigation to Android next?

By: , IntoMobile
Wednesday, August 19th, 2009 at 12:07 PM

tomtom-logoTomTom’s newly released GPS navigation software for the iPhone has already become the talk of the town. Just days after going live on the AppStore, TomTom’s iPhone offering is giving CoPilot Live Navigation v8 a run for its AppStore-money. And, TomTom isn’t about to sit back and relax. According to Pocket-lint, the GPS navigation world’s 800-pound gorilla is settings it’s sights on the mobile space and is aiming to bring the TomTom navigation app to Android. That would make Android the second finger-friendly, intuitive smartphone OS to work with TomTom’s satnav software.

TomTom’s Senior VP of Onboard Mobile, Benoit Simery, told Pocket-lint that TomTom “cannot ignore such a successful platform as Android. HTC is an important partner of ours and Android is becoming increasingly important too.” Indeed. TomTom recently partnered up with HTC to create the TomTom 7 Windows Mobile application, and now that HTC has gotten a taste for how good the Android OS can be, we’ll likely be seeing a TomTom app hitting the Android Market soon enough.

Still, TomTom isn’t going to focus entirely on the smartphone space. “There is nothing better than a satnav. It’s still superior. No smartphone can compete with a satnav and the integrated services that we can offer on our devices such as local Google searches, fuel prices, traffic information – we are still ahead of the game. There is still a strong market for dedicated devices. Very strong,” says Simery.

Fair enough. As long as TomTom doesn’t delay the launch of their Android app because they’re busy fiddling with dedicated satnavs, we’re just fine with that.

[Via: Pocket-lint]

About The Author

Will Park

Will hails from The City of Angels - Los Angeles, California. He spends his time playing with his numerous gadgets and looking forward to seeing what future holds for mobile technology. An avid promoter of a fully "digital" life, he promotes the widespread adoption of truly mobile, paper-less living. He dreams of the day when he can go completely digital. No more snail mail, paper receipts, bound books, notepads/spiral notebooks, credit cards, hard currency. He's a digital warrior - fighting for the converged life. He is an idealist and a realist - he has a perfect view of what the world should be but knows that the world is not perfect. Can we ever hope to see Will's dream become reality? We'll see...

  • ferjan

    “That would make Android the second smartphone OS to work with TomTom’s satnav software” WHAT??? TomTom has been around on Windows Mobile for ages….

    • seedy

      hmmm windows mobile = smartphone, mine was very dumb

  • Bob

    I purchased the TOMTOM iphone application

    I purchased the tomtom iphone application and am very disapointed. It is unusable without the car kit. When I contacted tomtom they knew of the problem and were suprised apple launced the application when they did. They have been getting many call about the weak signal. There only recommendation was to wait for the car kit to come out. In effect you pay $99 for something that doen’t work and then are required to pay more for the system to be functional. I DON’T THINK SO. I requested my money back from apple and no one has responded.

  • iconslim

    As it stands, the Samsung Galaxy S on ATT it's the Captivate has Google Maps for navigation. Well the verdict is: It's there, can be used but not as featured as a typical GPS standalone device. Tomtom on the Treo 650 was the gold standard and now with my newer phone I sort of wish I didn't upgrade. I can pair my external bluetooth GPS device with the Captivate but there's no application that I'm aware of which will use it. Also I had to explorer the Captivate's GPS settings until I got better performance, often Google Maps would simply not pick up my current location.