AT&T today announced its plans for rolling out 7.2 Mbps 3G data service on its network. Deployment will begin in Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles and Miami, with service in those cities beginning by the end of the year. Service will be extended over the following two years to cover approximately 90% of the current U.S. 3G network area.
AT&T plans to begin deployment of HSPA 7.2 in six major U.S. cities, including Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles and Miami, with initial service availability expected in these markets by the end of the year. All told, the company plans to deploy HSPA 7.2 in 25 of the nation's 30 largest markets by the end of 2010, and to reach about 90 percent of its existing 3G network footprint with HSPA 7.2 by the end of 2011.
AT&T announced in late May that it would be deploying the technology, which doubles the theoretical speed of its existing 3G network as an interim step toward LTE (4G) offerings scheduled to begin rolling out in 2011.
Apple's iPhone 3GS, released in June, does support the faster 7.2 Mbps download speed being deployed, although it is apparently unable to support the faster upload speeds associated with the new standard.
Ahead of today's "It's Only Rock and Roll" media event, Apple has reduced prices across the board on its iPod touch, iPod nano, and iPod classic lines.
iPod touch: - 8 GB now $189, down $40 - 16 GB now $249, down $50 - 32 GB now $279, down $120
iPod nano: - 8 GB now $129, down $20 - 16 GB now $149, down $50
As noted in our rumor roundup yesterday, Apple is expected to introduce new iPods at today's event, with the iPod touch, iPod nano, and possibly the iPod classic, gaining digital cameras. Last-minute production problems with the cameras, however, have been rumored to be delaying the launch of the new models.
It remains to be seen whether today's price reductions are an interim measure to offer the existing models at competitive pricing until the new models are ready for launch or if Apple will continue to offer these previous-generation iPods alongside the new models as a strategy to lower prices and boost demand. Microsoft's Zune HD launches next week at price points of $219.99 for 16 GB and $289.99 for 32 GB, exerting pressure on Apple to either reduce prices or add features to its iPod touch line.
MacRumors has received word that Apple has seeded a new version of Mac OS X 10.6.1, Build 10B504, to developers this evening. The new build, which has appeared approximately one week after the initial seed of OS X 10.6.1, carries only a single increment in build number over the previous build.
Build 10B504 reportedly addresses only two documented issues, one related to crashing of Desktop Services in Finder, and a second related to excessive "dyld shared cache" Console messages. The dyld Console entries issue was the only known issue detailed in the seed notes of the previous build, and no such known issues are documented in Build 10B504.
We took a first look at the TomTom U.S. & Canada turn-by-turn navigation app a short while ago, and have taken it through its paces over the past few weeks to complete our full review of this highly-anticipated app.
Navigation Guidance
The TomTom app offers several options when choosing a destination. Contacts integration is built-in, so it's easy to select a contact as a destination, and we really like this ability. However, we found that we'd often get an address format error when selecting an existing contact, even with addresses that appeared to have nothing out-of-the-ordinary about them, containing a simple street address in a city that exists in the TomTom's map data with everything correctly spelled:
We found that navigation guidance showed us off the side of the current road more often than we would have liked, even under weather and set-up conditions where other GPS apps, such as Sygic's MobileMaps and Navigon's MobileNavigator, showed no such problems. We also noticed that it lagged somewhat behind our current location, often showing us slightly behind an intersection that we were actually passing through. This lag can be confusing, especially if you are in an unknown location, which is of course where you are most likely to use a navigation app. We switched to 2D view to see if this was still the case and found no change in this behavior. In switching to the 2D view, we noticed that the "2D Map North Up" setting is on by default, which can be a little disorienting when you switch from the 3D view, which has no such setting, to the 2D view on the fly.
Off-road excursions we never really took
If you're starting out and try to select a destination before the app has obtained a GPS signal, you'll get a message asking if you'd like to start navigation from the last known location. While this is nice, particularly compared to Navigon's MobileNavigator's only option to view a simulation of the planned route from a starting point of its choosing, we'd prefer to see more options, such as the ability to start from your Home location or a previous destination if you're in a hurry to get going.
Once you've set a destination, you can also choose to generate a route for walking or riding a biycle. After the route has been generated, you can easily calculate an alternative to avoid a roadblock, travel via a certain road, and more. You can also see a demonstration of the route, read written route instructions, and browse the map of the route using the iPhone's standard pinch-to-zoom gestures.
The app correctly identified all toll roads in all our tests and can let you know before you start out that you'll encounter one on your route. It also shows speed limits and indicates when you're traveling above the speed limit by changing the numbers displayed to red. There is no option to provide any audible alert when you are exceeding the speed limit. This speed limit information only appeared on interstate highways during our tests and showed current vehicle speed at all other times. Unlike competing apps, including MobileNavigator and MobileMaps, the TomTom app does not provide any on-screen lane guidance to help you identify the best lane to be in on a multi-lane road.
The speed limit notification
When traveling on an interstate highway, we noticed that the TomTom app gave potentially confusing information about upcoming exits. For example, it would announce that an exit we needed to take was coming up about 2 miles in advance of the exit by saying "Exit approaching on the right." This would prompt us to look at the next upcoming exits on the highway and then compare it to the next exit shown on the TomTom app to ensure we didn't need to exit right away. It would be less confusing if the app stated how many miles we needed to travel before exiting, such as "Exit approaching in 2 miles."
The maximum and minimum zoom levels during navigation
The app offers voice guidance in multiple languages, unlike Navigon's MobileNavigator app for North America that only offers guidance in English. However, TomTom's app does not provide any text-to-speech capabilities at all. Sygic's MobileMaps offers some text-to-speech capability for numerically-named streets, such as highways and interstates and has announced that complete text-to-speech capability is coming in future app updates, while Navigon's MobileNavigator was just updated to bring full text-to-speech capability to the app.
Perhaps our biggest issue with the TomTom app's navigation guidance is that it does not tell you which side of the road your destination is on. You can always pay attention to the street addresses and find it yourself, but driving, hunting for addresses on buildings, and paying attention to navigation guidance is not always the safest combination. Additionally, Navigon's MobileNavigator and Sygic's Mobile Maps provide this information and it's disappointing to see TomTom not matching its competitors here.
Written instructions of a route
The TomTom app also offers the company's signature IQ Routes feature, which promises to offer the "smartest, most efficient" route based on road data collected from millions of drivers. You probably won't notice it in action unless you are very familiar with an area and its traffic patterns already and repeatedly use the TomTom app to navigate the same route at various times of the day. IQ Routes was most evident for us when using the Advanced Planning feature. In the following screenshots, the same route was calculated with different starting times. The route planned with a starting time on a Sunday afternoon yielded a more direct route, while the one planned during rush hour on a weekday morning gave a different route that detoured around common congestion areas in downtown Boston. This feature will prove particularly useful to those who need to get around a busy metropolitan area at peak traffic times.
IQ routes: weekend route (left) vs. weekday rush hour route (right)
We found that the app's navigation guidance was more or less accurate and trustworthy enough for us to not feel the need to double-check it against another source. We did encounter a few hiccups, such as an incident where it wanted us to go around a block to get to a destination instead of continuing straight on and making a left turn to get there. We captured a screenshot of this situation where you can see the red line indicating the intended route and the edge of the finish line flag indicating the destination ahead of us on the current road:
No need to go around the block to get to our destination
While the TomTom app offers reliable guidance, we remain disappointed by the features that competing apps offer that TomTom's more pricey offering does not, IQ Routes notwithstanding.
Map Data and POI
TomTom acquired Tele Atlas, one of the major providers of map data, in 2008, ensuring a direct source of map data for its navigation products. The TomTom app includes the most recent version of Tele Atlas maps at this time at version 8.30. In its FAQ, TomTom has not provided specifics on how much updates will cost, noting the following:
"At the moment the app comes with the latest and most up-to-date map. In future we will provide regular updates and make it possible to update the existing map."
Another FAQ response indicates that several free updates to the app itself will be provided this year.
We found the app's POI database to be very good in most cases, allowing us to find popular retail chain stores as well as independent, non-chain stores all the way from Target and Lowes to a small Korean grocery store. We did have difficulty locating Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Los Angeles, one of the largest cemeteries in California, which could not be found in any POI category nor through a search of the entire POI database. We realize that a cemetery may not be a popular destination for many, but the size and prominence of this site makes its absence from the POI database feel like something is amiss.
We did encounter a glitch every now and then when performing a search of the entire POI database. When the search results appeared and we selected one, we would sometimes get an error indicating that no search results could be found. We would then need to repeat the search but could always select the desired POI without a problem the second time around.
Integration with iPhone Functions
As suspected in our First Look review, the TomTom app does not use the iPhone's ambient light sensor to automatically adjust the map color scheme between day and night modes, requiring you to switch between them manually. Also as previously noted, music playing through iPod app stops and starts abruptly before and after voice guidance a smoother approach here would be much appreciated.
One of the available night themes you'll need to switch to manually
Switching between landscape and portrait view is smooth. Incoming calls take you to the standard iPhone active call screen. For calls received during navigation, ending the call causes the app to open to open up again by itself, but we found it did not always return to navigation guidance on its own, requiring us to re-select the desired destination again from time to time. The app will automatically override your iPhone's auto-lock setting and will keep the iPhone's screen on during navigation at all times, though it does adhere to the screen brightness level set.
The option to call a POI directly from within the app
As expected, the TomTom app uses quite a bit of power, appearing to decrease battery capacity by about 5% for every 10 minutes of guidance (with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on and screen brightness set to about 40% of its maximum level). Despite this level of power usage, an iPhone-approved Belkin car charger could still charge the iPhone while the TomTom app was being used, albeit at a slower rate than it does when the iPhone is in sleep mode.
We found that the TomTom app incorporates well the UI feel and gestures of the iPhone's stock apps and our only wish was for a 'Done' button in all screens to avoid the need to step back through multiple layers of nested menus to go back to navigation guidance.
We do want to note that the TomTom app was impressively stable through our testing, never once shutting down for no apparent reason in the middle of providing navigation guidance.
Summary
The iPhone GPS app market is turning into a heated one with apps from multiple providers, both all-in-one and subscription-based at a wide variety of price points. TomTom's app has been one of the most talked-about apps in this space following its announcement at the Worldwide Developer Conference in June, though it made it to the App Store later than many competitors. It also made its appearance in the App Store at a higher price point than many of those competing apps. At $99 for the North America version, it is $10 more than Navigon's comparable offering and $20 more than NNG Global Services' and Sygic's comparable offerings at the time of this review. Many of these apps offer more features now with more promised in the near future, as we've noted.
TomTom's app is a solid one that will suit the majority of users without any problems. However, it's not so stellar that we'd recommend it over all other competing apps hands-down, particularly at its $99 price point.
Note: TomTom's GPS Car Kit was not available at time of this review.
With Apple's "It's Only Rock and Roll" media event scheduled for tomorrow, months of rumors and speculation are coming together to generate a picture of what may be in store for the event.
New iPods with Camera
A report from mid-May was the first to suggest that the iPod touch and iPod nano would see the addition of digital cameras. Additional confirmation and mockup images of the next-generation iPod nano appeared shortly thereafter, and the new iPod nano is also rumored to carry a wider-aspect (1.5:1) screen ratio.
Over the past several months, a number of third-party case manufacturers have been advertising cases for the next-generation iPod touch and iPod nano designed to accommodate digital cameras on both models, as well as the new iPod nano screen size. Believable images claiming to be a prototype of the new iPod touch were also revealed last month:
Additional word appeared late last month that Apple has contracted for 3.2-megapixel cameras for not only the iPod touch and iPod nano, but also the iPod classic. Finally, iPod resellers have also reported dwindling stocks of existing iPod models and discontinuation of product codes for those models.
Last minute reports from multiple sources claim, however, that Apple has run into production problems with the cameras on the new models. While the issue may delay shipment of the new iPods, an introduction remains very likely for tomorrow's event.
iTunes Store - "Cocktail" and Pre-Cut Ringtones?
Apple has been rumored to be developing "digital album" packages of interactive content, code-named "Cocktail", that the music industry hopes will help spur sales of full albums via iTunes. Major record labels are also rumored to be developing their own competing format.
Another report last week also claimed that Apple has secured the necessary rights to distribute pre-cut ringtones via the iTunes Store as an alternative to the custom-designed ringtones currently available for many tracks in the store.
iTunes 9
A report from early last month suggested that iTunes 9, likely to be introduced at tomorrow's event, will offer support for Blu-ray media, as well the ability to organize iPhone and iPod touch applications within iTunes. Claims of social media integration also surfaced, along with several groups of questionable screenshots.
Other Rumors
- Beatles: While numerous observers have pointed to several Beatles-related product introductions tomorrow as something possibly more than a coincidence, AllThingsD reports that there will be no Beatles-iTunes announcements tomorrow.
- Tablet: Apple's much-rumored tablet computer has been the subject of significant attention in recent months, with Apple CEO Steve Jobs reportedly focusing nearly all of his attention on the project since his return from a medical leave of absence in late June. Despite some suggestion that the tablet could see an introduction as early as this month, the vast majority of reports claim that it will not be introduced until a later date, likely early in 2010.
- Apple TV: A recent slip in shipping times for the low-end Apple TV has led to speculation that an update to the device could be in store, but sources have indicated that no such announcement will be made at tomorrow's event.
Event Coverage
MacRumors will provide links to live coverage for the event and also provide Twitter updates @macrumors. For ongoing MacRumors news alerts, follow @macrumorsRSS.
Yahoo's Flickr service now has a native app available in the App Store. We recently reported that the iPhone had become the most popular cell phone camera used to upload photos to the image sharing site and it's likely this new native app will only increase its popularity among Flickr users.
When you first sign in to the Flickr app, you are required to authorize the app to use your Flickr account, which is done through Safari on the iPhone. After this, uploads to your Flickr account will be handled directly through the app with no further authorization requests.
The app can geotag your photos and offers immediate access to your recent uploads, your entire Flickr stream, and those of your Flickr contacts.
The Flickr app is free and can be found here (link opens iTunes).
iPhone Savior points to this photo of the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts that Apple has decorated in anticipation of the "It's Only Rock and Roll" media event.
The lead up to the event has generated some speculation about what Apple might be announcing. Apple is, of course, expected to update the majority of their iPod line as they have done for the past several years during their September media events.
The addition of a camera is the main feature rumored to be added to both the iPod nano and iPod touch. Appleinsider, however, has posted a vague suggestion that the new iPods may arrive late due to last minute technical issues. HardMac has a similar report with more details saying that the early iPods have been found to have a production defect:
According to one of our reliable source (however, it remains a rumor), Apple is facing problems with the production of the new iPod Touch. The issue would be linked to the new camera module. We did not get any further details, but the problem has been spotted in the first dozen of thousands units produced. Those units have been put aside.
If true, given the scheduled media event, it seems that this might just delay production rather than the product's introduction on Wednesday.
The music streaming app by Spotify, a popular Swedish music subscription service, is now available in the App Store. It was reported just last month that the app had been approved by Apple and the app was expected to be available in the App Store shortly.
The app is capable of streaming music over Wi-Fi or an EDGE or 3G data connection. It also offers the ability to store offline playlists that can be listened to in the absence of a Wi-Fi or cellular data connection, a feature that directly competes with the iPhone's iPod application.
Spotify offers a video demonstrating the app on YouTube:
Spotify's music subscription service is only available in a handful of European countries at the moment, including Sweden, Norway, Finland, the UK, France and Spain. Accordingly, the Spotify app is not available in the U.S. App Store. Where it is available, the app is free though a Spotify Premium account at a monthly cost of 9.99 Euros is required to use it.
As reported on iPhone game site TouchArcade.com, Apple has finally approved a Commodore 64 emulator called C64 [App Store] for sale on the App Store. The emulator had originally been rejected by Apple in June for violations of the SDK agreement, despite being officially licensed from both rights holders of the Commodore ROMs and the individual games bundled.
Apple has since been in contact with the company and a slightly modified version of the application has been approved for sale on the App Store. In particular, Apple appears to have requested the removal of the Commodore BASIC interpreter from the application which allows running arbitrary code.
The application bundles 5 games (Dragons Den, Le Mans, Jupiter Lander, Arctic Shipwreck, and Jack Attack) and the company plans on offering additional (properly licensed) games for sale and download. The cost of the additional games will be dependent on the conditions of the license holder but most are expected to be in the $0.99-$1.99 range (or even Free). The emulator only allows you to run these officially offered disk images and will not run arbitrary disks.
This video shot by TouchArcade shows the emulator in action, but shows titles that are not yet available, such as Bruce Lee and International Karate.
Manomio has said that they are actively working on bringing additional titles to the emulator.
Update: C64 has been pulled from the App Store Apple after it was discovered that the BASIC interpreter could be re-enabled through the software. A revised version of the application addressing this issue has been submitted to Apple for approval.
Adobe Photoshop project manager John Nack notes that Adobe has revised its Creative Suite FAQ to reflect that the company expects Creative Suite 3 to function normally on Snow Leopard except for a few non-critical bugs, which are detailed in a series of TechNotes posted to Adobe's support pages.
Do Adobe Creative Suite 3 products support Mac OS X Snow Leopard (v10.6)? Adobe has worked closely with Apple throughout the Snow Leopard development and testing process. Adobe has conducted its own additional testing of our Adobe CS3 software on Mac OS X Snow Leopard, and is confident that our CS3 applications will function as expected with Mac OS X Snow Leopard. Adobe did uncover some non-critical issues, which are documented for our customers to review at http://go.adobe.com/kb/ts_cpsid_51215_en-us.
After an initial report that Creative Suite 3 would be unsupported on Snow Leopard and had not even been tested, Nack quickly clarified that Adobe had at least tested Photoshop CS3 and found it to be compatible, but the company was unable to devote the required resources to perform a complete assessment of CS3's compatibility and to fully support the software package for Snow Leopard with updates going forward.
Earlier this week, Nack revealed a handful of issues affecting Photoshop on Snow Leopard, but Adobe now appears to have gained a clearer picture of the issues affecting each component of the suite.
Alongside yesterday's announcement that it will be bringing MMS to the iPhone on September 25th, AT&T released a video clip featuring "Seth the Blogger Guy" explaining the explosion in data growth over the past several years and how AT&T has been working to expand its infrastructure to handle the demands on its network.
In particular, Seth briefly addresses the steps AT&T has undertaken to prepare for the launch of MMS on the iPhone, noting that the company wanted to ensure that the feature works properly from the start.
We've been working for months to prepare the radio access controllers in our network to support this launch. That means calibrating base stations all over the country, and frankly that's a very time-consuming process. MMS for the iPhone will be coming on September 25th. We wanted to make sure that when MMS for the iPhone launches, the experience was great. We wanted to get it right.
Seth then addresses the broader investments AT&T has made in its network, totaling $38 billion over the past two years, to increase capacity and deploy coverage based on the 850 MHz spectrum, which offers improved capacity and in-building coverage. Finally, Seth points to AT&T's ongoing work to deploy technology to improve data transfer speeds and the expansion of 3G to additional markets.
Silicon Alley Insider reports that the location-based social networking service Loopt has struck a deal with AT&T that will permit the service to monitor a user's location (with their permission) in the background.
Via a deal with AT&T, and with your permission, Loopt will be able to access your location all the time you have a network connection, even when you're not actively using the iPhone app. (The app isn't running in the background; it's working server-to-server.) Loopt cofounder and CEO Sam Altman tells us that it's been users' most requested feature.
As pointed out, the application itself is not actually running on the iPhone at all times, but Loopt is able to pull your location information at all times with the cooperation of AT&T.
Loopt, which was highlighted at the App Store launch at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in June 2008, allows users to track the locations of their friends and offers several related social networking features. But until now, Loopt and other similar services such as Google Latitude have required iPhone users to be actively using their applications to locate other users. Despite the fact that Loopt currently only updates a user's location every 1-2 hours, implementation of an "always-on" location tracking service will lead to more useful tracking of friends and development of additional location-based features as the technology continues to develop.
Always-on, real-time location information is critical for the future of location services, Altman tells us. You'll be able to get alerts when you're near a person or place you're interested in, for example. You can build a "life graph" of all the places you've gone, he adds. (Maybe a running map?) And -- Altman doesn't say this, but we're making the next logical step, here -- this opens the door to easier location-based advertising, promotions, etc.
Loopt is offering a free 14-day trial of the background service for 5,000 users. Always-on service beyond the initial trial period will cost $3.99 per month and will appear on users' AT&T bills.
Update: To clarify the "background" nature of the feature, location updating is done strictly on a server-to-server basis, with Loopt receiving information directly from AT&T. The Loopt iPhone application itself does not run in the background.
Engadget posts a gallery of images showing third-party cases claimed to be for the next-generation iPod touch and iPod nano. The cases, being exhibited by accessory manufacturer Hama at the IFA electronics convention in Berlin, contain holes to accommodate digital cameras expected to be included in the next-generation devices. The iPod nano case also appears to accommodate a wider screen rumored to be offered in the forthcoming model.
The new cases are by no means the first to appear, and a number of manufacturers have developed cases of similar design, but the hands-on views and packaging images shown in this latest gallery may be of interest to readers.
New iPods are widely expected to be introduced at next Wednesday's Apple media event in San Francisco.
iFun.de, a German iPhone news site, reports [Google translation] that Navigon has officially announced its own car mount for the iPhone. The mount comes with a car charger and will be available in October at a price of "under 40 Euros" (approximately US$57). A subsequent model with its own GPS chip may be offered also. Navigon made this announcement at IFA, a consumer electronics convention currently taking place in Berlin.
Yesterday, we reported on information from Navigon indicating that an iPhone car kit to accompany its turn-by-turn navigation software was in the works. This information came to light via a wall post on Navigon's Facebook page, though no other information had been provided by Navigon through any other medium up until now.
Navigon was one of the first turn-by-turn navigation apps available for the iPhone earlier this summer, beating one of its major competitors, TomTom, to the App Store. Now that the release of TomTom's car kit for the iPhone has been pushed back to October, Navigon has another opportunity to be first-to-market with a major iPhone accessory.
UPDATE A correction has been made to note that the car kit to be released first will not have its own GPS chip, though subsequent models released may have one.
World of Apple posts the seed notes from the first Mac OS X 10.6.1 Snow Leopard update that has begun seeding to a limited audience. The 71.5 MB update details these changes:
The 10.6.1 Update is recommended for all users running Mac OS X Snow Leopard and includes general operating system fixes that enhance the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac, including fixes for:
- compatibility with some Sierra Wireless 3G modems - an issue that might cause DVD playback to stop unexpectedly - some printer compatibility drivers not appearing properly in the add printer browser - an issue that might make it difficult to remove an item from the Dock - instances where automatic account setup in Mail might not work - an issue where pressing cmd-opt-t in Mail brings up the special characters menu instead of moving a message - Motion 4 becoming unresponsive
Snow Leopard was officially launched on August 28th. Apple typically continues non-stop development after the initial launch of a major operating system to quickly address remaining bugs and outstanding issues.
Update: The new build updates Adobe Flash to 10.0.32.18, addressing a concern reported earlier today.
Java for Mac OS X 10.5 Update 5 delivers improved reliability, security, and compatibility for Java SE 6, J2SE 5.0 and J2SE 1.4.2 on Mac OS X 10.5.8 and later.
This release updates Java SE 6 to version 1.6.0_15, J2SE 5.0 to version 1.5.0_20, and J2SE 1.4.2 to 1.4.2_22.
The update weighs in at 161.35 MB and requires Mac OS X 10.5.8.
AT&T has issued a press release today announcing that MMS will become active for iPhone users on September 25.
We've been working for the past several months to prepare our systems and network to ensure the best possible experience with MMS when it launches - and that launch date is: September 25 for iPhone 3G and 3GS customers. MMS will be enabled through a software update on that day.
AT&T points to the need for the company to build out its network infrastructure to handle the demands of heavy MMS messaging volumes as the primary reason for the delay in launching the service compared to carriers in other countries that have offered MMS since the launch of iPhone OS 3.0 in June.
As announced in June, MMS messaging will be included at no additional cost to users with an iPhone text messaging plan.
There has been much speculation on the availability of MMS from AT&T, some with dubious origins. Next week's Apple media event had been the subject of some speculation as a possible venue for AT&T to launch MMS, which was first promised at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference in June, though today's news has put all such rumors to bed.
Forum member Jape has discovered a wall entry in Navigon's Facebook page that reveals the navigation company has a car kit for the iPhone in the works. In response to a question from another Facebook user, Navigon states, "...we are working on a kir [sic] kit for the iPhone...more information will follow."
Navigon was one of the first turn-by-turn navigation apps available for the iPhone earlier this summer. TomTom, a major competitor in the navigation space, announced its own app and companion car kit at WWDC in early June, though the app only recently made its debut in the App Store in mid-August, and it was just revealed that the Car Kit will not be available until October.
Navigon's wall post referencing an upcoming car kit was made on August 18, and no further information about it has been provided via Facebook nor in any recent press releases from the company.
