Garmin Nuvifone: iPhone wannabee or breakthrough product?

Stan Beer
Friday, 01 February 2008 08:37

Your IT - Mobility

The Nuviphone also allows drivers to find a specific street address, establishment’s name or search for a destination by category using the nüvifone’s built-in database with millions of points of interest in both the US and Europe. Turn-by-turn, voice-prompted directions guide the user to their destination. If they miss a turn along the route, the device automatically recalculates a route and gets them back on track, speaking the names of the streets along the way.

In addition, the Nuvifone is Garmin’s first device to include Google local search capability, which enables users to search for locations like “coffee shops” and Google will sort the results based on the user’s current location and relevance.

Another nice feature being touted is the “Where am I?”, which lets users touch the screen at any time to display the exact latitude and longitude coordinates, the nearest address and intersection, and the closest hospitals, police stations and gas stations. The Nuvifone also helps drivers find their car in an unfamiliar spot or crowded parking lot by automatically marking the position in which it was last removed from the vehicle mount.

And as a coup de grace, the built-in camera (what resolution?) automatically tags pictures with the exact latitude and longitude reference of where the image was taken. The user may then save the image so they can navigate back to the location, or email the image to a recipient who can navigate directly to the location.

It is almost as an afterthought that Garmins mentions the touch screen web browsing (which browser?), email, text and instant messaging. The same thing goes for other multimedia functions including a built-in video camera, MP3 and MPEG4/AAC.

By Q3, when the Nuviphone makes its appearance, we can expect to see 3G iPhones on the market and possibly the introduction of GPS capabilities. So can a newcomer smartphone device like the Nuviphone compete? Normally, coming in cold to a new market against a product with incredible brand recognition like the iPhone, you would have to say no, not really.

However, Apple's exclusive carriers policy with iPhone could well give iPhone lookalike competitors the leg up they need to freely compete on the networks of alternative carriers, which will be eager to have competitive offerings to the iPhone. For Garmin, this could be especially true if the Nuviphone lives up to its promise of being a top notch phone and combination portable navigation device. And that raises a whole new question.