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Will the personal GPS kill Car Navigation?
My answer, without equivocation, is no. TomTom, Garmin, and Magellan might be disappointed. And yes, I know there are $100 iPhone apps out there which provide the same service. Take a look at the Lexus Navigation System, the Audi Navigation system, and the BMW Navigation system in their 2010 flagships and see if the iPhone will suffice.
It is easy to forget how far car navigation has come. 10 years ago, car navigation simply entailed a series of maps uploaded onto a CD or a DVD. GPS would find the car’s location and triangulate it to the map on the screen. Voila. Today, everyone with a smart phone has Google Maps and/or Mapquest. You could argue these applications aren’t as responsive. Fair enough, grab a TomTom and Garmin, problem solved, right? Not exactly.
Car makers are smart. They know the navigation package has the highest mark up. They have been charging inflated prices upwards of $5000 for the “technology package” for ages. The selling point is convenience and the pretentious right to say “I got a BMW with Nav! Top of the Line!” as opposed to “I got a BMW.”
Luxury car makers are successfully distancing themselves from TomSquared and company. Mercedes Benz now offers a Navigation system with a 6 disc DVD player. The Lexus navigation system will not only give you active traffic updates but also update you on how your stocks and Lakers are doing. Audi’s navigation system takes it one step further and adds a TV tuner. Great, now you can connect to your phone via bluetooth and vote for your favorite American Idol all while zooming up the on ramp.
Like Ophelia, no one out-crazy’s BMW. On board the BMW navigation system is an 80 gig hard drive. With the hard drive comes a CD/DVD reader and a USB port so you can not only upload songs, but movies, files, documents and family photographs as well.
How do you make something good better? Just add Google. Yes, BMW navigation system will integrate with Google. You can “tell the car” where you will be traveling while enjoying the morning coffee on your desktop. When you jump in the car, the navigation is already there. Gmail fan? Great, now all your contacts can be uploaded into the BMW Navigation system – this means the physical address will be marked on the map along with names and numbers. Scroll to John, click the home/office address, and you have directions. Simple. Want to text him instead? BMW now has Google voice recognition built in, say it and it shall be texted. Voice enabled Google search is there too. Somewhere KITT is rolling in its grave..
Would I pass over Garmin and pay $5000 for a car navigation system? If that’s what it takes to say, “I got a BMW with Google! Top of the Line!”
Loving the use of big words
Hey what is LS7 engine
the LS7 is GM’s top of the line engine used in the corvette. recently, they used a version of it the XLR roadster (Cadillac). Another version of it was also used in the Pontiac GTO and the Australian version of that car, Holden.
Google is your friend.
My next car, BMW with Navigation!
To be better than Vpannu My next car, BMW with GOOGLE & Nagvigation + 80GB Hard drive (Hard drive is probably standard with all Navigation / iDrive but Google feature probally cost extra…?)
I’m going to disagree with you here. I agree that we have been ripped off for years with overpriced GPS navigation systems, the biggest rip off is in getting updated maps. Until these big boys decide to provide free or low cost downloads for map updates then the portable market may well hit the car manufactures profits. Don’t forget, there are many more smaller cars sold than top of the range BMWs or their equivalent,
It’s kind of ridiculous the level of technology we have today where google can just sync in virtually every aspect of our lives and always keep us connected to the web.
The personal GPS will never replace the built-in car navigation. All the car producers will include a car navigation system on their future models.
I think it take time to come in.
You’re probably right. Look at how Lexus, Audi and BMW already have navigation systems built into the newer models. It’s only a matter of time until all of the auto manufacturer’s make this a standard feature in all of their automobiles.
It will be great to have a navigation system provided by the car in itself. We can communicate with our system and record our details already. We can give the navigation system our details and it will store it .
When we want to know the route it will show us immediately.
May be not,the personal GPS would not actually replace the navigation system because the navigation if inbuilt can make GPS come down in few years,,,
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