Tomtom on iPhone - why haven't they pulled their fingers out

[Beefmeister]

Exactly as the title says, really.

Last thing i heard was in June last year, when Tomtom announced they have it running on an iPhone 3G, and it should be on sale in the App Store within the month.

So we're 7 months down the line, and still no more news.

Anyone have an idea what's going on? Adding Tomtom to the iPhone would make it sooooo much better.

[Plotloss]

TomTom have signed a deal with Google to supply mapping data.

I would expect it to come out on the Android Platform first, as a result.

Apple also said they had a turn by turn nav system coming and Apple like to control their market so I'd not expect it anytime soon.

[clonmult]

I thought (and am quite possible wrong) was that the iPhone SDK prohibited development of turn-by-turn mapping apps?

[Ecurie Ecosse]

Yeah - the sat nav on the iphone is a bit of a let down.

[off_again]

TomTom are the biggest player in Europe (if not the world) with these systems and as a result are a bit of a bull in a china shop. Apple, owning the appstore and the rights payment system, obviously don't like being pushed around. I am sure its nothing more than commercial discussions by two companies that like to own and control pretty much all aspects of what they do.

To be expected though. Apple want to make loads of money. TomTom want to make loads of money. Until someone comes to agreement, nothing will happen. Shame, as I am sure it would be good. But don't forget that TomTom now supplies connected units with inbuilt SIM's for data communications. I seem to remember that these are Vodafone based, so in direct conflict with O2 here and other providers elsewhere in Europe. Could be issues with exclusivity and contracts....

[otolith]

clonmult said:

I thought (and am quite possible wrong) was that the iPhone SDK prohibited development of turn-by-turn mapping apps?

I thought that too.

[LukeBird]

I heard Tom Tom weren't doing it because they made a much bigger return on selling the sat nav unit as a whole.
Far more profit for them when they sell the unit, not just the software....
Make sense I guess.

[clonmult]

LukeBird said:

I heard Tom Tom weren't doing it because they made a much bigger return on selling the sat nav unit as a whole.
Far more profit for them when they sell the unit, not just the software....
Make sense I guess.

Not that much sense, they've shipped TomTom for Windows Mobile and Symbian devices.

They could have a huge market for the iPhone, must be some other reasoning behind it. Like the iPhone not having "true" multitasking? I've always been used to having TomTom happily running as a background process when required, and then pop it up to the front when required. Not sure that is possible on the iPhone?

[_DeeJay_]

The iPhone is perfectly capable of multitasking - no worries there.

I'm also not sure about the SDK limitations. How is the SDK going to limit it - legally or technically? Technically, I don't really see how it could...

[elster]

I know that they did indeed make the app.

It was the politics that has put a stop to it.

[Mattt]

clonmult said:

LukeBird said:

I heard Tom Tom weren't doing it because they made a much bigger return on selling the sat nav unit as a whole.
Far more profit for them when they sell the unit, not just the software....
Make sense I guess.

Not that much sense, they've shipped TomTom for Windows Mobile and Symbian devices.

I was told they are less keen now due to the massive piracy issues!

[clonmult]

_DeeJay_ said:

The iPhone is perfectly capable of multitasking - no worries there.

I'm also not sure about the SDK limitations. How is the SDK going to limit it - legally or technically? Technically, I don't really see how it could...

I thought that apps couldn't actively run in the background on the iPhone?

[clonmult]

Mattt said:

clonmult said:

LukeBird said:

I heard Tom Tom weren't doing it because they made a much bigger return on selling the sat nav unit as a whole.
Far more profit for them when they sell the unit, not just the software....
Make sense I guess.

Not that much sense, they've shipped TomTom for Windows Mobile and Symbian devices.

I was told they are less keen now due to the massive piracy issues!

Sadly quite possible ... most of the WM and Symbian SatNav apps are well and truly hacked.

[sadako]

clonmult said:

Mattt said:

clonmult said:

LukeBird said:

I heard Tom Tom weren't doing it because they made a much bigger return on selling the sat nav unit as a whole.
Far more profit for them when they sell the unit, not just the software....
Make sense I guess.

Not that much sense, they've shipped TomTom for Windows Mobile and Symbian devices.

I was told they are less keen now due to the massive piracy issues!

Sadly quite possible ... most of the WM and Symbian SatNav apps are well and truly hacked.

Even better, Tomtom on Symbian does not support the inbuilt GPS, only bluetooth ones. The hacked/pirate version does support it. Until TomTom support the inbuilt GPS I was going to wait before buying it.

I can see Tomtom running on Android as the platform is very similar to the GNU/Linux platform that Tomtom Go devices use, so should save development costs, plus that I'm sure the Android market has anti piracy measures built in similar to Steam on a PC.

[_DeeJay_]

clonmult said:

_DeeJay_ said:

The iPhone is perfectly capable of multitasking - no worries there.

I'm also not sure about the SDK limitations. How is the SDK going to limit it - legally or technically? Technically, I don't really see how it could...

I thought that apps couldn't actively run in the background on the iPhone?

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2008/03/13/iphone-20-sdk-the-no-multitasking-myth/

[otolith]

_DeeJay_ said:

clonmult said:

_DeeJay_ said:

The iPhone is perfectly capable of multitasking - no worries there.

I'm also not sure about the SDK limitations. How is the SDK going to limit it - legally or technically? Technically, I don't really see how it could...

I thought that apps couldn't actively run in the background on the iPhone?

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2008/03/13/iphone-20-sdk-the-no-multitasking-myth/

Crikey.

I'm a huge fan of the iPhone myself, but isn't that article just the biggest pile of disingenuous Apple fanboi special pleading ever? To summarise, the OS supports multitasking, the native apps on the phone use multitasking, but third party apps are not allowed to use it - one foreground app at a time, please, and no third party background processes. Rationale? Well, Apple think iPhone users are too thick to work out that running too many processes at once will reduce the performance of all of them and eat up the battery life, and unlike those damned corporate we puppy-stranglers at Microsoft the nice fluffy folks at Apple don't want you to bother your pretty little head about such things. In any case it's inconceivable that you could want something to do other than save its state and restart when you've done doing something else. So just suck it up, it's for your own good, WinCE sucks, insert BSOD Haiku, etc, etc.

So, to all intents and purposes, third party apps can't run in the background - even though the OS is capable of supporting it.