You can control the iPhone's music playback within the Gokivo GPS app.
(Credit: Screenshot by Dong Ngo/CNET)You have two main options when it comes to GPS apps for the iPhone: apps with offline maps and apps with online maps. Examples of apps with offline maps are the Navigon, the iGo My Way, TomTom, or the recently added Magellan RoadMate.
These apps are excellent for frequent users as they don't require a live data connection to work. All the maps are included with the app and downloaded to the phone. However, they tend to require gigabytes of storage space and take a long time to install. If you plan on going on a long road trip, they are good fits.
If you are a casual user, however, it's better to use an online GPS application. These applications are just a few megabytes in size and therefore take a few seconds to download to the phone via a 3G connection. This means you can immediately get one the moment you suddenly need turn-by-turn directions.
The first online GPS app for the iPhone is the AT&T Navigator, which works pretty well. Unfortunately, it's only available to AT&T customers and is rather expensive ($10 per month) for what it offers. The good news is, you now have other and more flexible choices.
... Read moreGarmin and MapQuest want others to share the geospatial wealth.
Garmin's GPSmap 60Cx
(Credit: Garmin)In conjunction with the Where 2.0 conference in San Jose, Calif., both companies on Tuesday announced moves to share application programming interfaces (APIs) that let programmers take advantage of their products. For years, products or service APIs were often kept secret, but nowadays it's vogue for companies to share them in an attempt to become a vital part of a larger ecosystem.
Garmin, which makes GPS (Global Positioning System) devices that tell people where they are, announced a number of free and licensed APIs that permit sophisticated interactions between Web sites and GPS devices. For example, a hiker can upload GPS data to a Web site to plot travels on a map, or a geocaching enthusiast can download locations to scout out. Those and other interfaces are at a new developer-oriented Garmin Web site.
Meanwhile, MapQuest released a beta version of an API to let programs written in Adobe ActionScript take advantage of MapQuest's online mapping. The widely used Flash technology, as well as its new Apollo technology, both use ActionScript, as does Adobe's Flex software for developing Flash software.
To show what the software can do, MapQuest posted some demonstrations on its Web site.
Wireless router
General Motors and MapQuest have teamed up on a new service enabling drivers of GM's OnStar-enabled cars to use the Web to select and store destinations for their turn-by-turn guidance when out on the road. The new service, called OnStar Web Destination Entry, will allow drivers to find up to five destinations on MapQuest's Web site, then send them to the OnStar system directly from their computers.
The theory goes that these destinations can then be accessed while out on the road by connecting to the OnStar service center and selecting a stored destination via OnStar's automated voice-prompt system; OnStar will then guide you to said destination using a series of automated turn-by-turn directions.
Those who want to add a new destination while on the move will still be able to access the traditional OnStar trip advisers if they want to. The new service works only in models equipped with seventh-generation OnStar systems (2007 model year cars) or newer. A sample of 3,000 OnStar subscribers will take place in a pilot of the Web Destination Entry program this summer, and GM says that it expects 600,000 2007-model year cars--including all Cadillacs and Buicks--to come factory-installed with the service starting from "late 2007."
- prev
- 1
- next
