Free Google Sat-Nav Shakes Market

Source: bbc

Shares in sat-nav device companies have fallen substantially after Google unveiled its free live sat-nav for mobiles on Wednesday.

US firm Garmin fell 18% after details of Google Maps Navigation were revealed. Dutch firm TomTom dropped 13% on when markets opened on Thursday.

The Google application promises free real-time, turn-by-turn directions for people to follow on their phones.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8331824.stm

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What comes around goes around. ...

They never should have given the general public access to GPS.

Its been a life-saver for me when trying to find my way in rural areas. You need the ones that speak the street names though so you don't even have to glance at it.

or reading a paper map while driving. not to mention I use GPS on the water and it makes boating much safer.

I tried driving with the thing on my dashboard. By the time I was three blocks from my house, in a very familiar area, I decided I could not drive safely with it there.

I found it a little better mounted on the handlebars of my bicycle.

I do a little sailing when I can. Boating is different than driving on streets or highways. You generally have a lot longer to react to potential collisions, and those are far rarer than they are on the road. I can certainly see the benefit of being able to tell where you are when you can't see landmarks or are in an unfamiliar area.

otherwise its in the glove box. I do agree that is a little distracting, but I think it makes me safer when I don't know where I am going.

Conveniently ready for emergency use but not armed at all times.

Not that I'm a gamer or anything, but I've played my share of games with a moving map display as part of the game interface. Like fighter-jet planes, for example. And you learn to not look until you need it, and to make quick glances while you dodge surface-to-air missiles and such. :-)

To be fair I've never tried to use a car GPS, though. I'm still on the classic Rand McNally road atlas.

surface to air missiles in your car, you need to move to a better neighborhood. :)

I use the GPS on my phone all the time. it has voice turn-by-turn directions, with the street names. I never have to look at it once it goes. It just sits face down on my passenger seat and the nice lady tells me "0.5 miles, turn right on Filmore street".
It's better than a paper map or my wife's handwritten directions.

"Real men don't use GPS."

I'd love to have one for boating, but on the road the ability to read maps, take note of landmarks, estimate distances is a crucial skill. Unless you're the type of person who's often getting lost, and in very, very bad areas to get lost in, GPS is not only unneeded, but also detrimental IMO.

I'd rather be a little lost with a friendly male driver who didn't want to ask directions than outrageously lost with someone who became GPS-dependent.

For people who drive to unfamiliar places in the UK, satnavs are almost indispensible. Sure, paper maps are useful, but not when you have to stop all the time. When a post code basically gets you to a building, the address is useless. Can you imagine how many George streets, or Prince streets, lanes, walks, etc, there are in London? Let alone every other city, village, town or bend in the road? US drivers are used to our fairly regimented road system, even in cities, our blocks are square, and our streets have planned names or numbers. European cities, by dint of age, are much more organic and random especially in the UK where none of the cities have been destroyed in the past 300 so years. (Remember, Chicago's Great Fire was in 1871, London's was in 1666. Streets change names all the time, from block to block. They are one way for a while then one way the other way. And god forbid you take a wrong turn, now where the hell are you? There's a reason it takes two years of training to get a hack license in London.

I've been in the Western UK. Devon/Cornwall. There are far worse things that could happen than getting lost there. Like, say, not noticing an oncoming car in your one-lane country road because you were busy looking at a computer screen.

Memory and navigation are crucial skills, and we're pissing them away.

I use it as much for looking at the distance I have to go to get the destination, or to the next stopping point or whatever. Or to search for the next rest area, or what gas stations are at the next exist, etc. I like the estimated time of arrival, that sort of thing. Sometimes I use it to compare alternate routes in terms of milage. I think its a great tool. I hardly ever use it for turn by turn directions though, but that's just my usage style.

How far would it be if we decided to swing by Aunt Ethel's house on the way through Tennessee? What if went from there to gatlinburg? That sort of thing. I love it.

I agree with the person who says years of playing video games gets you used to not really looking at the map all the time. I guess.

Seems we did just fine without this for a few millenia as well.

...that tends to be distracting.

They should have never given the general public access to starting fires either! :rofl:

"This will lead to more car crashes by distracted drivers"

Yeah... glove compartment maps, too. And written directions also.

Then its worthless.

At the very least, I need it to say "Turn left in" ... feet/yards/meters, whatever.

Ultimately, without that it means I am paying attention to a screen not the road, and that is dangerous.

while driving. I can generally remember at least 6 to 8 instructions, so I normally only need the end of trip stuff. That's never been a problem.

What is a problem is that none of the mapping programs are 100% accurate, and can give incorrect instructions. It's good to have also looked at the map carefully beforehand.

It's a lot easier if someone else is in the car. I have them read the next instruction as soon as I've done the previous one.

Yaay.. Take that AHIP

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

and everyone gets a personal guide to ride with them when they go anywhere...so no distractions while driving.

But then, I've just recently read two Google-riffic books:

Planet Google and What Would Google Do?

So I'm keeping my eyes on them, closely.

Against the iPhone. Your play, Mr. Jobs.

silly silly investors.
TomTom which AFAIK is entirely about car nav drops 13% but
Garmin which is heavy into marine, hiking, and military apps drops 18%

BTW how do you figure this is a case of 'what comes around goes around'?

How do you reckon map sales have fared over the last two-four years?

Honestly a lot of the people who buy GPSs probably were not the type to buy auto maps. I know several examples.
Some people have both in their car.
And in non-car apps you are an idiot to rely on the GPS without a map to go with.

Gut instinct auto maps probably have decreased in sales. I wouldn't have really phrased it that way but sure I guess it is 'what goes around comes around'.
Thanks for an interesting perspective I would have missed.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/garmin-launches-gps-mobile-phone-with-att-2009-09-29

so they have a new product that gets directly screwed by this.

TomTom seems to work with mobile phones, rather than making one: http://www.tomtom.com/phones/

so perhaps Garmin has invested more money in their product, which is more likely to be lost now.

If the auto-nav GPS market tanked X percent it would effect TomTom a lot more than Garman.
Could be memory of the phone announcement though. It isn't like either company was immediately directly effected. Investors do all kinds of strange things.

All those iPhone users, and everyone else, is simply SOL.

:shrug:

With maps and navigation from Google.
And no reason not to expect turn-by-turn
nav from Google real soon now.

Tesha

P.S.: If you want raw GPS data on your iPhone,
there are apps for that as well; some are even free.