AT&T Navigator goes global

AT&T Navigator

(Credit: AT&T)

Today, AT&T announced that it's expanding its AT&T Navigator location-based service overseas, making it the first U.S. carrier to offer international navigation capabilities. Dubbed AT&T Navigator Global Edition, the service is available now and works in 20 countries, including North America, the U.S. Caribbean, and most countries in Western Europe. It will also work in six cities in China--Beijing, Shanghai, Qingdao, Shenyang, Tianjin, and Qinhuangdao--all of which will host Beijing Summer Olympics events. (AT&T is an official sponsor of the U.S. Olympic Team.)

Like the domestic version, AT&T Navigator Global Edition provides color maps, local search, and text- and voice-guided turn-by-turn driving directions. In addition, the audible prompts are available in English, Spanish, German, or Italian. AT&T Navigator Global Edition costs $19.98 per month, which includes domestic service, and works on a number of devices, including the AT&T Tilt, RIM BlackBerry 8800, RIM BlackBerry Curve 8310, RIM BlackBerry Pearl 8110, Samsung BlackJack II, and the Motorola Q9h. You can check out AT&T's Web site for more information.

One final note: Does anyone think this is another sign that GPS-equipped cell phones and smartphones will take over dedicated portable navigation devices?

[mnovickar]

Obviously it's the software environment on the phone. iPhone does not provide any of the general cell phone application software environment "standards" out there, which greatly reduces availability of third party applications written by parties who are not iPhone fanatics. Blackberry, Nokia, Motorola, etc. all support Java ME and similar flavors, and hence a single development effort covers all (or at least with minor tweaking). So questions about lack of iPhone support really should be going to Apple, not AT&T. Why is Apple repeating the "successful" software development model of the Mac on its phones? Why no interoperability?

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[elvisfan]

I don't think these will take over the portable navigation device market. The trend in portable GPS is to the larger screen. Phones have too small a screen. Also, I have not seen mounts to mount the phone to your dashboard. I don't want to lose access to the phone while it is being serviced because the GPS is out. Does the wireless carrier want you downloading new maps to your phone? Not if you have an unlimited plan.

[Mary Beth Lowell-TeleNav]

@elvisfan - TeleNav (which powers AT&T Navigator) sells car phone holders if you are interested - here is the link - https://store.telenav.com/newstore/AccessoryAddLoad.do. I use one and it works great.

@Bonnie - thought your readers might be Interested in how we localized this service for different languages and cultures. Check out this blog post from one of the audio engineers who worked behind the scenes on this launch: http://blog.telenav.com/blog/2008/07/author---karen.html