Are you tired of hearing about whether or not we’ll get actual, real, turn-by-turn GPS on the iPhone yet? You shouldn’t be, because it’s a killer feature that a lot of other smartphone platforms are justifiably proud of and the iPhone needs to get it, Apple’s crazy rules be damned. At least, that’s what we tell ourselves when we cover all this TomTom news, from “It’s coming to iPhone” to “It’s not coming.”
The latest? Despite what you may have heard (ahem), TomTom is working on a client and has one in-house that works “pretty well” according to MacGeneration (via AppleInsider). So says TomTom press chief Yann Lafargue, who adds that as for whether or not the darn thing will ever ship, TomTom can’t really say.
We know that Apple’s SDK agreement prohibits it (probably so Apple can’t get sued when you follow your GPS directions into a lake), but we’re willing to sign away our firstborn rights to sue for this, okay Apple? Can’t you guys make nice?
figure 1: what it is now and what they claim it will be
With the recent fake stirring up GPS news, who would have thought that real GPS news would be such a short hop away. It turns out that engineering design firm Partfoundry is working on making real GPS for the iPhone, and they figure that it will be available sometime in February, right about when the SDK comes out. As it stands, they say that you’ll need a jailbroken iPhone, but who really knows what will happen once that SDK comes out, right? It’s altogether possible that they’ll be able to certify the GPS serial device if they decide to go the extra mile. Extra bonus: no jpeg compression artifacts and a reasonable-proof-that-it-actually-isn’t-a-hoax video.
Engadget has a story that shows the iPhone with a TomTom GPS module connected at the bottom, on the route to Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Is it real or fake? No one can know for sure, but there’s at least a possibility that it’s real. The picture quality of the “proof” is horrid beyond measure; the JPEG compression artifacts are pretty much out of this world.
If the iPhone does work with TomTom and a GPS dongle, I’ll be a happy, happy camper. TomTom’s map setup is actually pretty excellent; I’ve used it for driving and stuff on the Treo. Their device activation was horrible with all the software keys you have to input, but once you got it working, it was excellent.
