NAVIGATOR and MOBILE

[jalan]

I am, in general, a fan of TomTom.  I find IQRoutes to be revolutionary.  But I also find Live Services to be so unreliability in the US that I stopped paying for it and my TomTom 740 Live sits on a shelf in the basement collecting dust.

I cannot figure out for the life of me why TomTom is AWOL on the Android platform. If TomTom is a world leader in navigation technology, why would you concede the US Android market to Google, Mapquest, ALK, Navigon, NDrive, TeleNav, Sygic and soon to be Route 66?

TomTom had an opportunity to be a leader in mobile navigation.  Instead they've given multiple competitors the opportunity to get a huge lead on them.  At some point the TomTom brand will be irrelevant to consumers as they learn to use other brands and like them.  The longer you let a customer use free Google Navigation, the longer they have to realize that the features they give up aren't all that important, because after all, it is free.

The last unique hook that TomTom has is IQRoutes.  They could be leveraging that uniqueness to drive people to their Android app.  Instead, they are totally absent from the market.  What an utter disappointment.  And this month I see yet another shiny new PND series being released.  At a likely purchase price of >$250 and another $120 per year for Live Services, those economics are ridiculous in a world dominated by smartphone competitors.  Why would I buy a dedicated PND when, for the same money, I can buy a (now, dual core) smartphone and have no ongoing recurring fee?

I've always said that hardware companies (Garmin and TomTom) don't know how to think like a nimble software company.  This is a prime example.

[hope68]

TomTom has linked up with Route66 - so the Route66 app is kind of TomTom ;-)

http://corporate.tomtom.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=549627

cu Peter

[mvl]

Route 66 for Android is still awol however

[jalan]

Yes, I am anxious to see this but I highly doubt it will have IQRoutes, which is about the only remaining reason to want TomTom on Android given all the alternatives that are now available.

[realseal]

Indeed, when can we expect a tomtom on Android, I now still have to keep my old phone (windows 6.5 mobile) for international travel and i now use google for national travel.  But if a tomtom app came along i will still think about buying it. Tomtom promised already in december of 2009 that an android version was onroute.......... shame on tomtom.

And the standard replys that other players use tomtom maps does not fly with me....

[Biffa]

+1 on TomTom Android request.

C'mon guys get it on

[colm]

+1 also. This platform is well established now. Way quicker than expected I'd imagine.

[jalan]

I think with today's announcement from Google, it may be too late frankly. Google navigation announced today the incorporation of both real time and historical traffic into the route calculations and ETA. This is a significant advancement and if you consider this on top of all of the other updates this app has received in the last several weeks and months, I see no end to the innovation and head start that they have on every other potential navigation app. TomTom had one advantage left and reason for people to purchase it in the android market. It had IQRoutes. If Google starts using Google navigation and latitude as probes then this advantage for TomTom goes completely out the window. It is unbelievable to me that TomTom squandered this opportunity and let others get so far out ahead of them. They seem to have all of their cards in the iPhone basket. Anyone entering the android market with a new app can justify the cost of the app by showing a greater feature set over Google navigation. As each month passes however that window closes more and more as Google navigation becomes more and more sophisticated and these other companies continue to be without an app at all. As each month passes, people are learning to live without TomTom and that perhaps is the most dangerous thing they can face - indifference. I used to hear a lot of people wondering when TomTom was going to be available for android. Now those same people don't seem to care. I think that is a disaster for them. Personally, I think this is a classic example of a hardware company that can't make the transition to thinking like a software company. I also can't help but wonder if part of this isn't European ownership not quite understanding the American marketplace?

[colm]

How much longer before Google drops Tele Atlas so??

[Oleg]

Want to run TomTom on Android (HTC Desire). Where can I buy?