Looks like Asus and Garmin are calling it quits come January next year, and we can’t say that we’re surprised. With the crash and burn of the Garminfone, we’re actually more surprised this didn’t happen sooner.
This makes strike two for Garmin, with the Nuvifone not quite attracting anyone, either. Now that the two companies are coming to and end of their partnership, maybe we’ll see Asus come out with a decent phone. Maybe not, but with Garmin at their side, nothing but backwards steps were being taken. I’ve never seen one of the handsets in the wild, and would be surprised if I ever did.
The thought of making a GPS enabled phone with an operating system that has some of the best mapping/location services is interesting enough, but not using any of said services is sort of ridiculous. Garmin does provide different services than Google, and in some ways they may be better, but unfortunately they can’t make anything that looks somewhat decent.
The Garminfone launched in June this year, and got its price cut shortly afterward. We weren’t surprised when we heard the handset wasn’t selling well, but we’re sure Asus surely wasn’t happy with the GPS service provider. We’re going to assume that both companies have learned their lesson, and will stick with what they’re good at, which is not making phones. If Garmin is to take part in the creation of a handset, let’s hope they’re not the brains of the operation. Upcoming Asus handsets may still use Garmin’s GPS services, but nothing has been confirmed.
Now that Garmin is out of the picture, we’ll see if Asus can produce a phone that doesn’t induce nausea, and their Windows Phone 7 handset looks pretty good, so we’ll just have to wait and see.
[Via: MobileBurn]