Mobile Phones Will Kill GPS Systems February 01, 2008 Posted In Wireless World, Emerging Technology By Allison

Location-based services getting around

Everyone needs direction—in a big city, in Macy’s Herald Square (floor 12 ½??), in life. That is why we’ll see navigational location-based services (LBS) really take off on mobile phones this year. According to Telephia, of the $118 million in revenue generated by downloadable mobile apps during Q2 2007, LBS represented a whopping 51 percent–with navigation taking the lion’s share.

Now carriers and handset makers are rushing to incorporate these services into their offerings. TeleNav, the first to launch a GPS navigation system on a mobile phone, has a long list of partners that include AT&T, Sprint Nextel, Nokia and RIM. Their competitor Navteq was snatched up by Nokia last year for $7.7 billion, and Garmin and TomTom (who dominate non-mobile GPS devices) are in a bidding war over digital mapper TeleAtlas. An increasing number of phones are now coming with built-in satellite navigation capabilities. Nokia’s new N95 and smartphones from BlackBerry, Motorola, and Samsung all come with GPS chips. Meanwhile Apple launched Google Maps, which uses cell towers to approximate the phone’s location. This is all allowing many cool LBS services like Socialight, Loopt, Wayfinder to be fully location-aware and sparking the creation of many more.

Garmin readies with a handset of its own

The number of cell phones with navigation will hit 162 million this year—that’s more than seven times the number of such devices sold for use in cars. And that market will soon be eclipsed entirely by mobile phones that can perform in-car GPS functions. In fact, it’s Garmin that is leading the charge towards dual function devices. They just launched a device that incorporates their GPS technology into a mobile phone. According to Mobile Content Today, the “nuviphone” is 3.5G with a touch screen and a camera in addition to GPS.

When you plug the nuviphone into its docking station, the hands-free capabilities are automatically turned on. Another useful feature is the “Where am I?” function that finds where you are on a map and lets you know of stores and whatnot that are near you.

And, thanks to some smart thinkers at Garmin, there’s finally an easy way to find your car in a crowded parking lot without hitting the panic button on the remote. The nuviphone has a nifty feature that pinpoints the cradle location, which, Gearlog points out, is also a great way to also pinpoint the location of your car at the mall.

No more tennis balls on antennas! But the device lacks multimedia, messaging, and third-party applications apparently. We’ll see if Garmin’s attempt to preempt their downfall works. In any case it will likely force both TomTom and traditional handset makers step up to the plate and try to create something better.