I hope this app comes out sooner than later cuz i'm dying !!!!
Tom Tom is a navigation tool not a medical practitioner
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TOMTOM for Iphone 3G or 3Gs
- Thread starter cosmaboy
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Tom Tom is a navigation tool not a medical practitioner
are we really sure tomtom will be on the 3G because it looks like our new buddys of tomtom and apple are really pushing the whole 'available for the 3gS' and not mentioning the 3g anywhere... i know it's on the tomtom site but has anyone gotten any emails to confirm from tomtom themselves?
I suggest you go back to the TomTom iPhone page and click on the iPhone WWDC announcement link.
Now, make an appointment with your doctor for prescription for a sedative. For some reason you choose not to believe that.
People throw out this as a price point a lot, but fail to notice/mention that it isn't a full featured GPS. For example, it doesn't speak directions. If the iphone app has spoken directions then of course it will cost more. If it has voice input, you are going to pay more for that, etc etc. You've got to consider what you are getting in the software, not just whether or not it is cheaper than the cheapest standalone.
On the flip side, TomTom has absolutely no hardware to manufacture other than an optional accessory (which has it's own, separate profit margins). Take away the cost of the cpu, LCD touch screen, e.g.
TomTom Navigator 7 for Windows PDA/Smartphone is currently priced at nearly £90 (~$146), which includes the software and maps of UK/W.Europe, and comes in a box on an SD card. Therefore I would suggest that this will be about the same price for the iPhone version, as the actual SD card and packaging can't possibly add much to the cost.
On the other hand, this is considerably more expensive than the similar-specced Navgon, so maybe TomTom will compete more directly and match/beat this price point...
Interestingly, TomTom offer a "city trial", where some Smartphones come with the software pre-installed and the option to download one city of maps to try it out - maybe something like this could be included? Wishful thinking perhaps!
Andy
On the other hand, this is considerably more expensive than the similar-specced Navgon, so maybe TomTom will compete more directly and match/beat this price point...
Interestingly, TomTom offer a "city trial", where some Smartphones come with the software pre-installed and the option to download one city of maps to try it out - maybe something like this could be included? Wishful thinking perhaps!
Andy
Not necessarily. The new micro-billing service in the 3.0 API would make it extremely easy for TomTom, or any other company, to sell city/county/state maps as add-on packs for a basic install. For example, an entire US map might cost $100, but each state might cost $20. Obviously buying all of the US states, and Canadian provinces individually would cost far more than the combine price, but if you only need a couple of states, you could save money.
That model could also be applied to updated maps. Instead of rebuying the entire US map each year to keep up to date, you'd be able to upgrade only those areas that you actually use on a daily basis.
Most likely it'll be a full map only deal, but the API allows companies to get creative, so hopefully a few of them will be smart enough to experiment.
You have to remember that while Tomtom is saving not having to make hardware, they lose 30% of every sale to Apple. So even if they charge $99, they only get $70 of that.
That's true, but some, if not all, of that figure is offset by the fact that store prices for a physical unit include store markup, and direct from site software sales would still require them to set up, manage, and provide server capacity for effectively a mini app store.
While a lot of people like to get upset about the 30% Apple take for apps, providing an industry grade point of sale web presence is damn expensive, and for many developers, the 30% is probably much cheaper than the alternative.
And it's no 4 in the sales ranking already, so if TomTom want to avoid being DumbDumb they'd better get that product out sharpish!!
No argument here. We're seeing a large number of turn-by-turn applications come out of the starting gate. People are obviously eager to buy GPS products and TomTom is missing out on sales. While they got the holy-hand-of-Apple advantage by being the feature at WWDC they are losing market share by dragging their feet getting moving. After all, they were the ones to boldly announce that they were ready and waiting for the 3G to be released and then Apple squashed them. They've had a year to be ready.
Does this sound familiar?
Here we are. They got their blessing and we get "later this summer."
Then again, on the Navigon front, they didn't implement a traffic system in their software. I guess they came into this late and possibly didn't have time to figure out how to deal with a traffic system that's not FM-receiver based. Now they'd have individual GPS units asking for traffic data and they may not have been ready to handle the server load. TomTom already has data-polling "live" models up and running in hardware GPS receivers for traffic, POI and information. It would appear that they're more appropriately equipped for these kind of demands. It's possible that they expect an overwhelming response to a release and are ramping up server capability before release.
The nav devs will feel special when they make 1000x the money on the iphone than all the other phones combined.
Interesting. I did not know that, and in that case Tom Tom should consider adding some substance to their iphone teaser page so we know what and why their worth waiting for - heck even a release date wouldn't harm!