So here’s a nice treat for all of you on a Friday evening. We got our hands on an early version of T-Mobile’s upcoming BlackBerry Bold 9700 and took some time to shoot a brief, sneak-peek video of TeleNav GPS Navigator running on the phone. While there are a number of videos of the phone posted out there on that “series of connected tubes” the rest of us like to call the Internet, I think we’re the first blog to deliver this exclusive demo of our navigation app running on the phone. That’s right, consider it our little gift to you before you head out and pick up the phone next Monday, Nov. 16. If you’re thinking about picking up the phone, I can personally say that it’s a very impressive device. The folks over at RIM did away with the trackball and introduced a new touchpad, which worked very well for me while I was testing the device. The phone’s also very sleek in terms of design, so you can definitely count on it making your friends jealous when you pull it.
As you can see in the video, not only do I assume that all of you out there watching are “party people,” but TeleNav GPS Navigator does a great job of getting me and my camera man Ryan to the local Bank of America. Some of the features I bring up in the video include the ability to share addresses with your contacts, day/night mode, smart spell recognition and the quality of the text-to-speech function.
Enjoy the video and let us know what you think of TeleNav GPS Navigator on the new BlackBerry Bold 9700 or any of the other phones we support. We always appreciate your feedback. Have a great weekend.
Well, the new phones continue to come down the pipeline and the latest is the Samsung Moment for the Sprint Network. The Moment is an Android based device and after having the chance to play around with it, I must say it’s one very slick device. And even better, Sprint Navigation (powered by TeleNav) worked beautifully on the device, with the large touch screen providing an excellent view of the application for easy navigation.
We decided to hop in the car and take the Samsung Moment and Sprint Navigation for a quick spin. It was around lunch time and I was craving some Indian food, so you’ll see in the video that we conducted a search for Indian restaurants in our area. Some of the features you’ll see in the demo video include visual and audio turn-by-turn directions, full text-to-speech including spoken street names, real-time traffic information and our point of interests search including rated listings.
The Samsung Moment hit stores this past Sunday, November 1. If you’re looking for a new phone and want something that will make your friends jealous, the Samsung Moment may be the phone for you. If you’ve already picked one up, tell us what you think about Sprint Navigation. We always appreciate your feedback.
AT&T and Pantech launched a new device this week, the Pantech Reveal, which is Pantech’s first “single-slider” phone. Overall, the phone has a nice feel to it and the inclusion of two key pads, the number pad when the slider is closed and the full keyboard when it’s open, makes it very handy to use. You can quickly dial a number with the slider closed and easily slide out the keyboard for messaging purposes. But perhaps the best feature in our humble opinion is that the phone comes preloaded with AT&T Navigator (powered by TeleNav).
We decided to take the Pantech Reveal out for a little spin and test some of the features included in AT&T Navigator on the phone. And because sharing is caring, we thought we’d bring along a video camera to show you the application in action. As you can see, it was very easy for me to find the destination I wanted to drive to and head out on my way. Some of the features you’ll see in the video include onscreen and voice turn-by-turn directions, text-to-speech (i.e. turn right on Kifer Road, not just turn right), real-time traffic alerts and the ease in which the POI database can be used to find a location.
Enjoy the video and if you picked up a Reveal or are planning to, let us know what you think of AT&T Navigator on the phone.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few months, you’ve probably heard a lot of talk about the HTC Hero on Sprint. With the number of mobile phones that come out each year, it seems like only a few phones generate significant buzz before they launch and the Hero is one of those phones. Sprint launched the Hero yesterday and you guessed it, Sprint Navigation (powered by TeleNav) is available on the phone.
I got my hands on the Hero prior to the launch and took it for a spin and I have to say, I was really impressed with the phone’s performance and overall look and feel. While I was giving the phone a test drive, I decided to shoot this brief video of Sprint Navigation guiding me around here in Sunnyvale. As you can see, the app looks great on the phone and got me exactly where I wanted to go.
In the video you’ll see me using and mentioning a number of features built into Sprint Navigation including a POI search to find the bank I was navigating too. I also mention some of the other categories available in the more than 10 million POIs including gas by price, air ports and Wi-Fi hotspots. I also used the app in landscape mode and decided to try and throw it off by missing some turns to show how quickly it was able to calculate a new route and get me heading in the right direction.
I hope you enjoy this brief video and if you’ve already picked up a new Hero or are planning to, be sure to check out Sprint Navigation. And when you do, don’t hesitate to tell us what you think.
Some of you may have seen the rumors floating around lately regarding the applications that will come preloaded on Motorola’s upcoming CLIQ phone, the company’s first Android device running on T-Mobile’s network. Well, today T-Mobile officially announced details surrounding the CLIQ, including the preloaded applications and the date you can preorder this very cool device. We’re happy to say that TeleNav GPS Navigator v5.5 will be one of the applications CLIQ owners will be able to fire up from the first day they get their hands on the device. The service will come with a free two-week trial so CLIQ users can try the application out first hand. After that, users can get turn-by-turn directions, real-time traffic information, more than 10 million points of interest and spoken address entry capabilities for $9.99/mo.
You can preorder the CLIQ starting Oct. 19 and it will be available in stores on Nov. 2, right in time for the holiday season. To give you a little taste of TeleNav GPS Navigator v5.5 running on the CLIQ, we took the phone out for a little drive around our headquarters here in Sunnyvale. As you’ll see in the video, the application for the CLIQ got us right to where we needed to go and did it in style, with cool features such as flipping to landscape mode when the physical keyboard slides out.
All of you T-Mobile subscribers be sure to check out the CLIQ and all of the preloaded apps including our TeleNav GPS Navigator v5.5. You won’t be disappointed.
Time is ticking away for you to win one of the biggest prizes we’ve ever given away here on the TeleNav Blog. You only have four days left to enter to win a full year of TeleNav service for you and a friend. The season of giving is quickly approaching, so why not get a head start and hook one of your friends or family members up with GPS navigation on their mobile phone. Just think, they’ll never be able to blame getting lost as the reason they missed your wedding again.
So how do I enter you ask? It’s very easy. All you have to do is click on THIS LINK and visit the original contest post. Leave a comment as to why your friend deserves (or in most cases NEEDS) TeleNav’s GPS navigation application on their phone and we’ll select the best five entries. As I mentioned above, the winners get a year of service for themselves and the friend or family member they nominated. To all of you couples out there, this is your chance to finally end one of the arguments that has plagued humankind for centuries.
But wait, there’s more. As part of our extended 10 Year Anniversary Celebration, we thought it would be great to give readers of our blog an inside peek into what life is like inside the friendly confines of the TeleNav offices. So, we took some time to visit with employees in our Seattle and Sunnyvale offices to shoot a brief video and ask them a few questions about what it’s like being part of the TeleNav family. Oh, and keep an eye out for a special edition of “TeleNav Idol” with our own versions of Randy, Paula and Simon (we later had our own Ellen announce that she was replacing Paula). We hope you enjoy this short video on life at TeleNav and if you want to see more, you can view some fun pictures of BBQs, team outings and other events at TeleNav here. Now go enter that contest!
Sprint Navigation (powered by TeleNav) on the Palm Pre
If you’re a customer of our carrier partner Sprint and plan on traveling this Labor Day weekend, you should consider using Sprint Navigation (powered by TeleNav) on your phone to guide you to your destination and also help you find your way around once you arrive. The application transforms your Sprint phone into a lean, mean, navigation machine and brings the features of a personal navigation device right to your phone. Better yet, it’s now available on more phones than ever before. Sprint announced today that Sprint Navigation is available on more than 60 Sprint phones, including the popular Palm Pre, one of my personal favorite devices that launched this summer.
A few of the Sprint Navigation features you’ll be able to use on your trip this weekend include:
Voice and on-screen turn-by-turn directions complete with 2D and 3D maps to guide you to wherever you may be traveling this weekend
Traffic alerts with one-click rerouting to help you avoid the congested roadways expected this Labor Day weekend and get you to your destination as quickly and stress-free as possible
Real-time gas price listings help you find the cheapest gas prices along your route, helping you save a few bucks to buy that “I visited Branson and lived to tell about it” T-shirt you’ve always wanted
More than 10 million business listings to help you find restaurants, hotels or nightlife spots along the way or when you arrive at your vacation destination
Pre-plan your trip online to find all of the locations you want to visit during your vacation and instantly send the information to your phone so it’s there and ready to go as soon as you start up the car
You don’t have to rely solely on my word about how much Sprint Navigation can help you this Labor Day weekend and in your daily lives. After all, I might be a little biased. Today’s announcement includes quotes from three Sprint customers who use Sprint Navigation on their phones to help them do everything from streaming turn-by-turn directions through their vehicle while listening to Pandora at the same time to finding a new route around unexpected construction in a familiar area. James Kendrick of the popular tech blog JKOnTheRun also weighed in on his experience with Sprint Navigation on the Palm Pre, saying the app works just as well as a personal navigation device.
So, if you’re a Sprint customer and looking for an app to add a little guidance to your life this Labor Day weekend and beyond, check out Sprint Navigation. We’d love to hear your stories on how you used Sprint Navigation during your trip.
If this sign is in your future, GPS may be right for you
I recently embarked on a cross-country move from Chicago to Silicon Valley to work here at the TeleNav headquarters and have to shamefully admit that I don’t think I would have survived without the help of a GPS device. I’ve been good with directions my entire life and would not consider myself directionally challenged. However, after completing the trip I honestly questioned whether I could’ve done it alone. Forget how the pioneers made it across the country hundreds of years ago, I found myself wondering how people did it in the 90’s!
So, I thought I would share some of the things GPS technology (such as TeleNav GPS Navigator) helped me out with during my trip and after arriving here in sunny California. I’m no longer convinced that a friend with a pick-up truck is the best resource to have when moving and here’s why:
No more maps - Although they’re always good to have as a back-up resource, I didn’t look at a map once when driving across the country. Each day I would determine how many hours I wanted to drive and then I was easily able to pinpoint the town/cityI needed to drive to in order to reach my desired driving goal. Not only that, I was able to find hotels in the town I had targeted as my stop for that day and call in advance to ensure I had a room available when I arrived.
Keeping gas in the tank - As those of you who’ve driven across this great country of ours may know, there are some areas where a tank of gas will barely get you from one town to the next. During the entire trip I tried to make sure I never dipped below a quarter of a tank to ensure I wouldn’t end up on the side of the road sitting on empty. One thing that helped me do this was checking the GPS device for gas stations along the route to help me better judge when I should fill-up. If you miss the chance to fill the tank, it might not come again very soon. Trust me, watching that needle drop while you frantically wait for the next exit is not good for the nerves.
Getting back on course after a stop - One of the most difficult things to predict when driving a long distance is when and where you’ll be stopping. Whether it’s for food, gas or just to stretch, it’s hard to plan ahead when you will be getting on and off of the interstate. I’m sure we’ve all seen an exit sign with five fast food choices listed, only to find after taking the exit the food is five miles down the road and now you’re driving around in a small, unfamiliar town. With the GPS device, this situation is easy to avoid because you can see the restaurant’s distance from your current location. You know it’s not 10 miles off of the exit. And even if you do have to drive that far off of the interstate, you have the comfort of knowing the device can get you right back onto the interstate and headed in the right direction.
A local guide to your new city - Finding your new city of residence isn’t the last stop for your GPS experience. I’ve actually found that using TeleNav GPS Navigator in my new town has been more beneficial than I could’ve ever imagined. There were so many things I needed to locate immediately after arriving like furniture stores, a bank branch, the post office, the DMV and my office. Sure I could’ve looked these up online and printed out directions, but it was so much more convenient to be able to type or speak it directly into my phone and be directed right there. After having some time to settle in, I still find myself using the service to find things like grocery stores, gas stations and restaurants. My friends are also commenting on how well I seem to be getting around the new area. If they only knew . . .
Those are just a few of the benefits using GPS technology provided to me while I was making the trek across the country. I’ve made the drive across the country a few times now, both with and without the help of GPS, and I can honestly say I felt much more comfortable with those directions being spoken to me along the way than fumbling around with some printed directions. If you’re planning a move to a new city, I would highly recommend picking up a GPS device or mobile phone application to help you adapt to your new surroundings, it’s been a life saver for me personally.
The study found that in the U.S. visits to mapping Web sites increased 10% in the last year or so. This is contrary to the researcher’s prediction that usage would go down due to increased popularity of GPS navigation services. Additionally, the study found that MapQuest remains the most popular mapping Web site but that Google Maps is catching up.
It’s very interesting to see that despite the fact that 1) more people are buying GPS navigation devices than ever before and 2) usage of GPS navigation services on cell phones is also increasing, people still like to login from their computers to view maps.
Our theory is that people are using both GPS devices as well as online maps – which is why we continue to add more features to our TeleNav Maps service (our free online mapping service) and have also tightly integrated it in with “My TeleNav” which allows TeleNav GPS Navigator users to preplan online. We’ve also launched a browser plug-in so you can type in addresses easily from any browser and preplan that way.
What do you think? Do you think our theory is correct? Do you use both and, if so, why?
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