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AT&T Navigator (powered by TeleNav) Now Available on the iPhone!
June 23rd, 2009Author: Todd Witkemper – PR Manager
AT&T Navigator on the iPhone
We know that many of you have been waiting to hear when we would be launching on the Apple iPhone. Well, after some hints that we were working on an application, we’re very excited to announce with our partner AT&T that AT&T Navigator (powered by TeleNav) is available today for $9.99/mo. on Apple’s App Store.
iPhone owners may be aware that the recently launched OS 3.0 software update enables turn-by-turn navigation right from the phone, moving beyond the traditional mapping services previously available on the iPhone to provide a comprehensive voice-guided, turn-by-turn navigation experience. Here at TeleNav, we’ve become the leader in developing navigation applications for hundreds of mobile phones and have used our expertise in this area to work with AT&T to develop a great iPhone application that delivers the experience you’ve come to associate with AT&T Navigator and TeleNav products. Here are just a few of the features AT&T Navigator brings to your iPhone:
- An always up-to-date experience - going beyond what you get with most personal navigation devices, AT&T Navigator for the iPhone uses the phone’s connectivity to ensure the maps and point of interest databases you’re depending on are up-to-date, with updates provided every three months
- Turn-by-turn, voice guidance - unlike map services iPhone users have used in the past, AT&T Navigator incorporates turn-by-turn, voice-guided directions. Now you can go beyond a basic map view of your location and receive guidance along your entire route, factoring in elements such as traffic and your personal route preferences. Your iPhone is instantly turned into a powerful personal navigation device
- Real-time traffic information - AT&T Navigator for the iPhone provides real-time traffic information and enables you to re-route around traffic at the push of a button
- Gas Price Information - utilizing your iPhone’s connectivity, AT&T Navigator can instantly return results for gas prices in your area, even breaking it down by grade. If gas is 10 cents/gallon cheaper a mile down the road, you’ll know about it and save at the pump
- Millions of Points of Interest - iPhone owners will have access to more than 10 million points of interest with AT&T Navigator, ranging from restaurants to ATMs to Wi-Fi hotspots. No matter where you’re traveling, you will have instant access to any business you may need to locate and easily navigate to it
- Voice entry - AT&T Navigator for the iPhone incorporates voice entry, so not only can you type in an address or business, but with a single touch of the screen, you can speak it and the application will recognize the location and get you started on your way
- Planning ahead - although AT&T Navigator can provide directions whenever you need them, we know that some of you like to plan ahead. With the iPhone application, you can preplan online and send addresses and business listings from your computer to your phone. The next time you start the application, the addresses will be available and ready for you to navigate to
Those are only a few of the features included in the application, so we encourage all of you iPhone owners to try the application for yourself. Once you try the application, please provide us with your feedback and be sure to rate the application on the App Store. We’re continually looking for feedback and ways to build upon our products.
We hope you enjoy AT&T Navigator on the iPhone and as mentioned before, we are certainly excited to be able to announce that the application is now live on the App Store. Click here to read today’s announcement.
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Tags: apple, AT&T, AT&T Navigator, GPS, iphone, navigation, OS 3.0, telenav, Turn-by-Turn
June 23rd, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Criticisms
- No iPhone contacts integration (Gokivo’s iPhone app has this)
- No ability to listen to music while driving (Gokivo’s iPhone app has this)
** Ok I take the above point back slightly. You can start your iPod application and then start the navigator. The music will keep playing and be interrupted by the voice directions. This work around does work but you don’t have iPod control aka volume, skip, etc.
- No audio source control built in. I stream my music via A2DP Bluetooth into my aux port hence I listen to my music / navigation thru the aux channel on my car audio. Thats great right. Well not exactly as if I want to listen to the navigation direction via the iPhone speakers so I can listen to the plain old radio I have to disable Bluetooth streaming by going into settings and basically un-pairing the A2DP adaptor I have in my car. PITA. What would be much better is if like every other application that streams audio you could select the audio source in the app itself. Another reason why I think this app was rushed out with AT&T pressure because every other app including Pandora / Slacker / iPod all have it built in.
- No ‘wide screen view’
- Maps load slowly. No Google Maps goodness here.
- No ability to add to iPhone contacts from inside the nav application. Yes you can add to favorites but this does not make that info available to other applications outside of navigator like Google Maps when I have reached my destination.
These are not “Apple” restrictions. These are self imposed Telenav restrictions. Everyone else has mastered these hurdles with the exception of Telenav.
So what does it do well.
- When you make a phone call it returns to the app and recalculates. However this is a native iPhone OS functionality in OS 3.0 and has nothing to do with Telenav being clever. So I am being nice here.
- The directions were clear and concise
- The graphical representation was clear. Nothing special by iPhone standards but clear & bright.
- Search worked well
- Application performance was acceptable
- Found GPS lock points quickly. No complaints here.
- Sync with myTelenav worked as expected.
Some might say I am being brutal in my review but to be honest this an application you rent (not own) for $120 per year. I expect the latest and greatest with subscriptions and on the iPhone I expect iPhone goodness. I expect to see developers bumping up against the Apple imposed restrictions like not backgrounding etc. My issues with this application have nothing to do with this. This apps failings have nothing to do with Apple and everything to do with Telenav rushing an unfinished application to market because of AT&T pressure. Come on Telenav.
You can do better than this.
June 23rd, 2009 at 11:40 pm
Where is the AddressBook / Contacts integration on the iPhone?
June 24th, 2009 at 2:36 am
great!
June 24th, 2009 at 9:49 am
WWWWWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!
June 24th, 2009 at 7:20 pm
Mike - this feature is not currently part of the service but we appreciate the feedback and will share it directly with AT&T as well as our iPhone team.
June 24th, 2009 at 7:28 pm
Andrew - thanks for taking the time to share your feedback with us. We appreciate all of it and will review it internally as well as with AT&T. Please continue to share any thoughts you have. We strongly feel that feedback from customers is valuable and please know that we take all feedback into consideration as we continue to focus on providing the best service we can.
June 30th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
I have to agree with Andrew I’ve used to app for many years without any problems, on my blackberry. With the blackberry bold I was able to use the ATT navigator At the same time using Ihartradio. When I went to the iPhone I was unable to multitask between them both. Everytime I Press the menu Key it would turn off the telenav. I mostly use telenav when I’m on my motorcycle. I’m not looking at the screen I only need turn by turn however I like to listen to my radio at the same time.
July 2nd, 2009 at 7:00 am
Fantastic app, love it! Finally a great addition to the iPhone…can’t believe that iPhone hasn’t had a voice navigation until now! Telenav thank you, thank you, thank you for getting this much needed app to the iPhone.
Regarding Andrew’s comment regarding slowly loading….Telenav is loading alot more than google maps, google maps does not do navigation. Google maps is ok for what it can be used for, but try driving and navigating with it…you’ll be kissing an oak tree in about 1 minute. As far as the rest of his comments, whatever can help in user preferences in the future, great. I think if you look at what Andrew says Telenav on the iPhone does well, you will find that it does navigation well which is what the application is meant for - to navigate!! Thank you Telenav, love the product!
July 2nd, 2009 at 10:08 am
Maury/Cindy - thanks to both of you for the feedback!
July 4th, 2009 at 7:22 am
Quick question. I notice that there’s no trial period being offered for the iPhone version. However there is a trail version for the other 180 different phones that support it.
Why is the iPhone left without a trial version?
July 5th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
Battery Not lasting more then 1.5 hours
July 6th, 2009 at 7:11 am
Andre - thanks for the question - promotional capabilities are not currently available through the App Store so AT&T is not able to provide a trial period.
Maury - thanks for the feedback. Are you running other apps at the same time?
July 6th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
If I have a stereo bluetooth headset or speaker in my car, will voice directions route through this device or will they still come from the iPhone speaker?
July 7th, 2009 at 9:43 am
ES - the service doesn’t include BT compatibility at this time but I will share this as a request with the team. Thanks!
July 7th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
To answer ES question above check out this posting on my blog regarding the ability of iPhone 3.0 to stream audio using Bluetooth A2DP.
http://techstumbler.com/2009/07/07/iphone-3-0-now-supports-bluetooth-a2dp-audio-streaming/
July 14th, 2009 at 7:00 am
Not sure where to post this, soo here is some feedback?
Tested, using a iPhone 3GS in a full 3G Market.
Pros
- The Turn-by-turn directions/voice worked great (automatic rerouting worked great as well)
- 3D Maps look great.
- Traffic Alerts! HUGE HUGE plus!!! Worth the $10/month alone. IMO.
- Great syncing with the http://navpreplan.com website.
- Search seemed to work ok. (for POI’s)
- The app itself seemed very fast (on the 3GS)
- Text to Speech worked great for street names
- Resume after a call works great!
Major Cons, this stuff really needs to be in the NEXT VERSION, for this app to get 5 stars..
- Can’t pull address information from the built in contacts list.. Crazy?
- No Wide Screen/Landscape mode… please please please, use the 3.5″ iPhone display the way it should be used…
- No iPod/Music Control within the app itself.. (We shouldn’t have to close the AT&T Nav App, open the iPod app, change song/playlist/etc, then close the iPod app, then reopen the AT&T Nav app.. Not good while driving)
- Maps should load faster than they do currently on a 3GS , in a full 3G Market……….. (Maybe cache more of the area at once? it should be a bit faster than it is)
- Night-Time Map Mode
Should be added at some point…
- Use the compass built into the 3GS.
- Weather info (like other telenav products)
- Some type of “Lane Assist” would be amazing..
- Have different/downloadable voices? The one included is OK, maybe beef up the audio quality some as well? ;P
- Be able to set multiple destinations within one trip.
- Would be nice to pick the audio source for playback as well. (Isn’t this apart of the new iPod API in 3.0?)
- No Surrounding POI’s are shown on the map while using the APP, you have to push a button and search for a POI, would be nice if it just displayed them.
Overall:
- Recommended to use with a Window/Dash Mount for a MUCH better GPS signal, also with a car charger, this will drain your battery very quickly.
- For “Version 1.0″ great start… Can’t wait untill you guys release the next update….
July 14th, 2009 at 7:51 am
Uplink, thanks for your feedback. We certainly appreciate it and will take all of the points you make into consideration.
July 16th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Ive been using the app for a couple of days and love it. But I have to agree with some of the other posts….
Its silly that it cant pull addresses from contacts.
The app should come back and recalc the trip when you take a call.
When you do integrate contacts.. they should show as points of interests as you are driving along (wow, Im right by grandma’s house.. i think I will drop by ;->)
audio is kind of crappy
Im new to the whole turn by turn thing… I DO like the app and appreciate you all bringing it to market.
July 17th, 2009 at 11:41 am
Love the app. The fact that it wasn’t available was almost the reason I didn’t buy the iPhone. This is my feedback:
-audio is horrible. Need ability to listen through Bluetooth ear piece.
- landscape view
- night view
- phone calls while map is displayed
thanks for your time
July 17th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
Matt/Angelo - thanks to both of you for your feedback.
Matt - once you hang up from your call, the application should restart and provide you directions automatically. Is this not happening?