Slashgeo

A few geoblogs covered the announcement by Garmin, traditionally focusing on GPS devices, of a smartphone named Nuviphone [multiple screenshots], due later in 2008. From the Wikipedia stub: "The Garmin nüvifone is an Internet-enabled mobile phone and personal navigation device manufactured by Garmin. It makes use of a touchscreen with virtual keyboards and buttons, similar to Apple's iPhone." It has GPS capabilities, from the PR: "“This is the breakthrough product that cell phone and GPS users around the world have been longing for — a single device that does it all.” The nüvifone is an innovative mobile phone that has a wide range of advanced yet easy-to-use features. The all touchscreen device is the first of its kind to integrate premium 3.5G mobile phone capability with an internet browser, data connectivity, personal messaging, and personal navigation functions in one device. When powered on, the 3.5-inch touchscreen display reveals three primary icons — “Call,” “Search,” and “View Map” which allow the user to effortlessly master the nüvifone’s functions." Some related stories below.

I admit this is partly a rehash of this January story, but The Map Room offers nice simple graphs on the online mapping services and GPS devices marketshares. In short, MapQuest and Garmin (in the U.S.) are way ahead their competition. From TMR: "MapQuest continued to lead with more than 50 percent of the market, with Google Maps second at 22 percent, and Yahoo and Microsoft trailing. [...] survey conducted in February of the U.S. market gave Garmin a 56 percent share of the consumer GPS market [...]" MapQuest also recently added current traffic conditions to their mapping services, something Google Maps has since over a year. See also related stories below.

CNNMoney.com expresses a dismal view of Garmin's future. As I read through the article, I heard a voice yelling "Hey, I'm still here!", but no one was listening. As portable electronics get smaller and more, well, portable, single-purpose devices are losing relevance fast. A device that isn't always connected to the great information stream is a second-rate digital citizen these days. "Garmin's going to need more than Google Maps to keep from getting lost in this crowd.", the article says.

I say, Garmin should join Dash and put cell communication in their GPS's. That ought to keep 'em alive a little longer!

A number of financial and industry sites are reporting on the dip (Ref 1, Ref 2) in stock prices for some of the leading portable navigation device manufacturers. Following an earnings warning on 4/8 and some earnings concerns quarter-to-quarter for Garmin, prices have been on an overall steady decline. Add to this the price concerns for TeleAtlas and NAVTEQ, each with their own merger concerns in the EU, and things don't look good in the short term for a portfolio focused on portable nav devices.

Nothing an approval from the EU regulators couldn't fix!

Slashdot is currently having a discussion about this article from the Washington Post. Here is their summary : "The Washington Post has a long investigative article on how more and more police departments are secretly planting GPS tracking devices on the cars of people they are investigating — usually without a warrant. After-the-fact court challenges on this technique have largely upheld such use of a GPS device, though the Washington State Supreme Court has ruled that a warrant is required."

The AnyGeo Blog has updated news about 3DVU's Navi2Go product. For more screenshots and links to the full story, please visit the AnyGeo site. Here is their summary : "German company 3DVU has the right idea with their Navi2Go application - thiunk Multi-Language 3D Picture Navigation. Using high-res aerial photography, users can travel over the entire UK, US, Germany at high resolution aerial photography with full 3D landscape. Imagine pulling up the navigation app on your mobile device and you have access to a realistic 3D rendering putting your location into context, enabling you to be perfectly oriented."