Submitted by Bob Bhatnagar on
Magellan has jumped into the iPhone game with their own car dock and GPS turn-by-turn navigation software. Instead of attaching to the windshield like the TomTom car kit, Magellan's device mounts to the dashboard.
Magellan's RoadMate iPhone app is available on the App Store now for $79.99 (a $20 discount over the normal retail price). TomTom sells its navigation software for $99.99.
The Magellan dock swivels so the iPhone can be oriented horizontally when entering addresses, etc. The device features a built in noise-cancelling speaker for making calls and for turn-by-turn navigation. Similar to the TomTom, the Magellan dock plugs into the 12V cigarette lighter and charges the iPhone.
Magellan's built in GPS receiver works with any navigation application or location-based iPhone application. The device is fully compatible with 2nd and 3rd generation iPod Touch and the iPhone 3G and 3GS. The dock is also adjustable to accommodate different iPhone cases so they don't have to be removed.
Magellan's device is available for pre-order on Amazon for $129.99, which makes it $10 more expensive than the TomTom model. The Magellan is scheduled to ship by December 11.
Comments
robbot214 replied on Permalink
This dock works fine with the Magellan GPS iPhone application, as you would expect. However, i also have the Tomtom GPS app on my phone, and although that works somewhat in the Magellan dock, it frequently indicates satellite signal loss and stops tracking my position. Switching between the 2 apps, i have confirmed that satellite signal coverage is fine, and the problem is in how the Tomtom software communicates with the dock. Tomtom is well known for not playing well with others. On my old Ipaq the Tomtom installation corrupted the Bluetooth drivers so that no other application could use that function until the Tomtom software was removed