Yes, you read that right! You can now get a fully featured Sat Nav application for your iPhone for just £5. NDrive have just dropped the price of their iPhone App to £4.99, and despite the budget price tag, it’s actually pretty good and is good alternative to TomTom, CoPilot and Navigon.
NDrive Sat Nav for iPhone
In terms of features it has pretty much everything that you’d expect to find in the premium apps from TomTom and CoPilot. According to its iTunes listing, the app includes:
Fully functional SIGNPOSTS AND INFOLANES
Embedded store-inside-store in order to allow an easy download of extra features to your App such as new voices, alerts, etc.
Highly effective search engine and rapid calculations allows benefits such as a fast and easy calculation of alternative routes
Most important buildings and landmarks are presented in 3D
Car, Pedestrian or Adventure Mode, where ADVENTURE MODE will guide your way while trekking, bike riding, off-road in cars, on boats and even on light aircrafts
Simple and intuitive user interface
MULTI-TOUCH TECHNOLOGY with gesture recognition for menu, zooming, tilting and panning will enable you to control and display maps easily
POIs (Points of Interest) and favourites with phone/fax number, description, email and website address
UNLIMITED NUMBER of customizable favourites entries and user defined categories
Navigating and searching for city center, street names and numbers, crossings, postal codes, favorite places, recent locations, coordinates and nearby POIs
Advanced itinerary with multiple waypoints for enhanced planning
Keyboard available in either ABC or QWERTY mode
INTEGRATION WITH IPOD, listen to music while driving
Automatic Day/Night mode
Sound and visual alarms for desired and fixed maximum speed levels
Automatic Portrait/Landscape display mode
Free access to the NDRIVE COMMUNITY to share POIs with other user anywhere in the world
Search online from you NDrive using search engines like GoogleTM and find additional POIs in any location
The only feature that stands out as not being present is speed camera alerts, but these are available to download through the application.
NDrive UK & Ireland Sat Nav for iPhone is available in the App store now for £4.99, but given the large file size, you’re better off downloading this through iTunes on your PC and syncing it over.
I’ll be putting this app through it’s paces over the next couple of weeks and hope to have a full hands on review available soon. In the mean time let me know how you get on with it using the comments form below.
Bluetooth Car Kits are getting smarter, and most of them now support synchronising the contacts stored on your phone to the car kit to enable faster dialling, caller display, and enabling voice control – even on phones like the iPhone 3G that doesn’t support voice dialling.As great as this is though, it’s not quite as straight forward as you’d think as there are two different ways that phones and car kits talk to each other. I’ll apologise now if this gets a little confusing, but I’ll try and keep it as simple as I can.
Although Bluetooth is a pretty generic technology, there are a number of different bluetooth profiles and each bluetooth device uses different ones. The two that are needed to synchronise your contacts between your car kit and your phone are either PBAP – Phone Book Access Profile or OPP – Object Push Profile, but in order for it to sync, both the phone and the car kit need to support the same profile.
OPP – Object Push Profile -This is an older Bluetooth Profile, so should be supported by most phones and car kits that support contact sync. If the car kit supports the OPP profile then it is capable of receiving information that is sent or ‘pushed’ to it. In order to send your contacts to a car kit that uses OPP you will need to initiate the transfer of your contacts from your phone, either one by one or all at once. The only downside to this is that not all phones support sending your entire phonebook in one go.
PBAP – Phone Book Access Profile -This profile is one of the more recent Bluetooth Profiles, so not all phones or car kits support it. The advantage of the PBAP profile is that you don’t need to send your contacts to the car kit, the car kit will retrieve them from your phone automatically every time you connect.
Bluetooth support is limited on the iPhone and although it’s improving, it still doesn’t support all Bluetooth profiles – in particular the OPP profile. There is no way of sending any information from an iPhone over Bluetooth. This means that if you have a Bluetooth Car Kit that only supports OPP, you’ll only be able to use the car kit for calls, although features such as last number redial should still work fine. The iPhone does support the PBAP profile though – in fact it supports it brilliantly, so if you want to be able to sync your contacts make sure that the car kit you buy supports the PBAP profile, it should be listed in the technical spec of the user manual.
I’ve got the Parrot MKi9000 installed in my car and every time the car is started and my iPhone 3G connects, the kit checks my phone for any changes and and updates itself. Like I said before, the iPhone supports PBAP brilliantly, and when paired with a compatible car kit it gives you control over the information that is synchronised with the kit. You can chose which groups of contacts to sync – if any, as well as recent calls and favourites.
iPhone Car Kit Sync Options - iPhone OS 3.1
From personal experience I’ve found that the best car kits for syncing your contacts are those made by Parrot. As well as supporting the iPhone fully, they also feature Text to Speech technology that announces the callers name when you receive a call and some will allow you to use voice dialling – even on the iPhone. It does this by matching the wave print of what you say against the Text to Speech wave prints for the contacts stored in the car kit. Most voice dialling kits require you to train your voice to them or to record your own voice tags for the contacts, and this normally doesn’t work too well. The current Parrot car kits that do all this are listed below. If you want more information on any of the kits, just click on the image or read my post on Parrot Car Kits.
It was announced back in March at the Apple Developers Conference, but until now further details have been very few and far between.. Until now.
We already know that the software and the car cradle will be available separately, and we’re now hearing that the car cradle will retail for around 115, but there is no news yet as to whether this includes the software or not.
UPDATE: TomTom for UK is available now in the iTunes App store for 59.99. No confirmed pricing yet on the car kit. iTunes Link.
iPhone TomTom Car Kit
Another image has surfaced of the iPhone TomTom Car Cradle, this time showing off a few more of it’s features:
EasyPort Mount from the TomTom ONE and TomTomXL
Built In Speaker
Volume Control
Microphone for handsfree calling
Mini USB Charging Connector
Audio Line out (for connecting to Car Stereo)
Sources are also confirming that it will work with the iPod touch too.
We’ve not yet been able to confirm any of this yet with our suppliers, and we’ll post again as soon as we know more.
On a similar note, the rumour mill is also suggesting that CoPilot Live 8 is on its way to the App Store and will be available some time next week for around 26. UPDATE: CoPilot Live 8 is available now from the AppStore – iTunes Link
Decisions decisions…60+the cost of the car kit for TomTom, 26 for CoPilot…
Since the iPhone 3G launched last year with built in GPS and the new iPhone 3GS launch this year, people have been calling out for a proper Satellite Navigation Application for it. Well, after a long wait, iPhone OS 3.0 finally provides support for turn-by-turn navigation.
Navigon MobileNavigator for iPhone 3G & iPhone 3GS
TomTom were the first company to announce a ‘proper’ Sat Nav solution for the iPhone at last months Apple Developers Conference. TomTom demonstrated the software and introduced the TomTom Cradle – an optional extra to help you get the most out of their mapping software, but they didn’t announce any pricing or release dates. This week though saw the release of the first two Sat Nav apps, and surprisingly TomTom weren’t one of them!
First to launch were Navigon -MobileNavigator: Europe came first, withMobileNavigator: British Isles appearing in the App Store this morning. (Both are available now from iTunes and clicking the links will launch iTunes and take you directly to the App Store).
Second to release a full turn by turn App is Mobile Maps 2009 by Sygic. From the reviews it’s getting, it’s a better option than Navigon as it has a few more features such as full postcode search.
Navigon posted this video demoing the software.
If you do invest in a Sat Nav App for your phone, it’s not just the App that you’re going to need. You’ll need something to hold your iPhone and a way of keeping your iPhone charged, as battery life will be dramatically affected by using Sat Nav, especially on long journeys.
Depending on your budget and what you want to achieve in your car, there are a number of options available:
Something Simple
iPhone Rotating Car Holder
If you don’t want to break the bank and just want a simple, no fuss solution, then you’ll need to get yourself an iPhone 3G Car Holder and iPhone Car Charger. The holder simply fixes to your windscreen using a suction cup and can be used in either landscape or portrait mode.
Brodit Active Holder for iPhone 3GS
If you don’t like having things stuck to your window or the tell tale circle on the glass that says you have a Sat Nav system, then you should also consider a Brodit Active Holder for the iPhone 3GS. These are phone specific cradles that will hold your iPhone securely and have a car charger wired into them, so there is no need to fiddle with cables. They are made from a strong ABS plastic and have a soft touch coating to prevent your phone from getting scratched as you use the holder. You can use your iPhone in both landscape and portrait modes as these holders have a rotating bracket. Brodit Active holders are designed to be screwed onto your dashboard, although if you don’t fancy doing this you can use a Brodit Pro Clip. These are secure mounting pads that clip on to your dashboard and can be removed without causing any damage to your vehicle. ProClips provide an ideal base for fixing an active holder on to.
TomTom on iPhone 3G
TomTom Car Kit for iPhone 3G & iPhone 3GS
If you plan on using the TomTom software when it is released later in the year, then this is probably your best option. The TomTom Car Kit does just about everything you need all in one small discrete holder. The suction mount can be fixed to either your windscreen or dashboard (using a fixing plate) and can be rotated for use in either landscape or portrait mode. As well as holding your iPhone, the TomTom Car Kit will boost your GPS signal for improved tracking; it has an FM Transmitter that allows you to play music from your phone through your stereo speakers, and a built in loudspeaker for the voice navigation while you’re driving. Pricing and availability are still to be confirmed.
Music Streaming, Hands-Free Calling and Navigation
If you really want to get the best from your iPhone and want an in car set up that can be used with your iPhone 3G / 3GS for handling calls, music and navigation there are a number of Plug & Play and professionally installed options available.
Play music from your iPhone 3GS through your Car Stereo with the Jabra SP700
There are a few iPhone 3GS Plug & Play Car Kits that will work with the iPhone 3G, and the Jabra SP700 is one of the best. The Jabra SP700 is a self install Bluetooth Car Kit that simply clips to the sun visor of your car and pairs to your iPhone using Bluetooth. The SP700 supports the A2DP profile, which means that you can stream your music to it over Bluetooth and listen to it either using the speaker in the SP700 or you can stream the music from the SP700 to your car stereo speakers using its built in FM Transmitter, in a similar way to how the TomTom car kit works.When you use the Sat Nav app on your iPhone, any voice commands will also be played through your car stereo speakers so you shouldn’t ever miss any directions. The battery life of the SP700 is upto 14 hours talk time and 250 hours stand by.
Streaming using Bluetooth can be quite a drain on the battery, especially if you are using Sat Nav at the same time, you will almost certainly need a car charger and a way of mounting the phone in the car. Personally I’d recommend using aBrodit Active holder for iPhone 3G and a vehicle specific ProClip.
Fully Integrated to your Car
If you want a more permanent solution or one where you don’t need to recharge the handsfree unit, then theiPhone 3GS fully fitted Car Kit will be your best bet.
Parrot MKi9000 for iPhone 3GS
I’ve tried most of these kits out with the iPhone 3G and the iPhone 3GS, and by far the best option here is one of theParrot MKi Car Kits. Parrot only make Bluetooth accessories and because of that they make sure that every phone works brilliantly with their car kits. There are three kits in the MKi range, but the Parrot MKi9000 for iPhone 3GS is your best bet, mainly because you dont need an external screen. You can play music from your phone through the MKi9000 either by connecting the Dock Connector (which will also charge your phone) or you can stream it using Bluetooth.
The Mki9000 will synchronise with your phone book, and supports voice dialing even on the iPhone 3G. There is also a small remote that you can attach to your dash or steering wheel to control your music (Play/Pause and Volume only when streaming using Bluetooth).When you use Sat Nav on your phone, voice instructions come through your car stereo clearly, and if music is playing at the same time, it briefly mutes out the music so that you don’t miss any directions.
You won’t need to buy a car charger for your iPhone as this kit will charge your iPhone when you connect the dock cable, but you will still need a holder for your iPhone 3GS. Depending on how this kit is installed into your car, you may find that the charging cable may not be able to reach the windscreen, so a dashboard holder such as the Brodit Pass through Holder for iPhone 3G & 3GS will be a better option. It’s made from the same soft touch plastic as the Brodit Active Holder, but instead of having a car charger attached, it has a Dock Connector on the bottom so you can leave the charging cable connected permanently.
They’re easy enought to fit yourself, but to be on the safe side I’d recommend that you have your car kit professionally installed.
Over the next few months we will see even more Sat Nav applications make their way into the app store, with products from Telmap, Co-Pilot and Navicore still in the pipeline.
If you’ve used any of these Sat Nav applications or accessories, let us know your thoughts by leaving a comment below.
The Apple iPhone 3GS is a touchscreen phone packed full of features. To get the most out of your phone, youll need to treat yourself to a few extras but what do you need? The amount of iPhone 3G Cases and other accessories available for phones now is almost overwhelming, so to help you out, weve compiled a list of our top ten accessories for the Apple iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G.
One of the best new features I’ve found with iPhone OS 3.0 on both the iPhone 3G and the 3GS is the ability to type in landscape mode, and this stand makes it even easier as it holds your iPhone at the perfect angle for landscape typing. With the Xtand you can keep your phone in clear view on your desk, and can rotate it to use the phone in both portrait and landscape mode. The Xtand is ideal for watching movies, browsing the internet or flicking through your music using coverflow. The Xtand is styled to match Apple iMacs and the new Unibody MacBook Pro.
Having spent a lot of money on the iPhone 3GS, the last thing you’re going to want to do to it is damage it or scratch it, so a case is a worthwhile investment.
Technically this isn’t really a case, but it gives the same amount of protection against knocks and scrapes without adding any extra bulk to your phone. InvisibleSHIELDs are a tough, thin plastic film that covers all of your iPhone 3GS. It has a non slip feel which reduces the chance of it slipping out of your hand. It also has an anti reflective coating that eliminates reflections and reduces fingerprints.
By far this is our most popular Leather Case for the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS. It is hand made from premium leather and designed specifically for your phone. As well as protecting your phone, the Piel Frama cases have storage space for Bank/Credit cards and cut outs that allow you to use your headphones and charger while your iPhone is in the case.
One of the new features of the iPhone 3GS was a built in Compass, great if you enjoy outdoors activities such as camping, hiking etc. If you do enjoy these kinds of activities and want to take your iPhone with you, then you’ll need a case that will keep your phone protected in some pretty harsh environments, and that’s exactly what the OtterBox cases do. They are a triple layered case that will withstand serious knocks. They consist of a Clear membrane to protect your screen, a High Impact polycarbonate shell that wraps around the iPhone and surrounding this is a strong silicone skin that absorbs bumps and shocks.
Another new feature was the introduction of Stereo Bluetooth. This allows you to listen to your music on headphones, but with out the hassle of a wire going from your headphones to your iPhone. The BT3030 will work for both calls and music and allows you to use any 3.5mm headphones. While full music control isn’t supported by the iPhone, the BT 3030 will let you play/pause your music, answer/end calls and adjust the volume. If the Jabra BT3030 isn’t quite what you’re looking for, take a look at our Top 5 Stereo Bluetooth Headsets for the iPhone,
Apple have improved the battery life on the iPhone 3GS, but realistically you’re still only going to get about a day out of a full charge. This Leather case has a built in battery that will charge your iPhone and increase talktime, standby time and music playback time. It has its own on/off switch, so you can turn it on only when your iPhone needs recharging. Unlike some products, this case doesn’t add excessive bulk or weight to your iPhone.
You got one in the box with the phone, but if you’re anything like me, this will spend its life plugged into the wall or your home PC. Getting yourself a second cable will allow you to carry one with you or leave one at work so that you can charge your iPhone from your PC or Laptop.
The Jabra SP700 does a lot more than you’d think. As well as being a Bluetooth Car Kit for handsfree calling in the car, the SP700 can stream music from your iPhone using Bluetooth and using its built in FM transmitter can then play your music through your car stereo speakers. When a call comes in, music playback will be paused automatically and the callers voice will also come through the stereo speakers. Most handsfree kits tend to suffer when you travel on motorways or go above 50mph, but as the call audio is routed through your stereo speakers, you can adjust the volume on your stereo to make sure that you can hear the caller. It’s portable too, so you can easily transfer it between vehicles. Battery life is fantastic with upto 14 hours talktime and over 250 hours stand by time.
Parrot have always made fantastic car kits and the Mki range are no exception. There are three options available, the MKi9000, Mki9100 and the Mki9200. The main differences between them being the display screen that comes with them. I’ve chosen the MKi9000 as the best one for the iPhone 3GS because you don’t need an external screen. You can play music from your phone through the MKi9000 either by connecting the Dock Connector (which will also charge your phone) or you can stream it using Bluetooth. The Mki9000 will synchronise with your phone book, and supports voice dialing – even on the iPhone 3G. There is also a small remote that you can attach to your dash or steering wheel to control your music (Play/Pause and Volume only when streaming using Bluetooth).
If youve not seen the accessory here thats right for you, why not take a look at our full range of Apple iPhone 3GS Accessories.
Mobile Applications, iPhone | Indigo Cloud | 
May 17, 2010 1:07 pm | 
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