Garmin Adds A Cell Phone To Its GPS Device - InformationWeek

First Apple came out with the iPhone, then Google announced its mobile-phone software system development platform, and now general practitioners shaper Garmin is entering the mobile telephone marketplace with a loanblend device called the nuvifone.

The nuvifone is the first mobile telephone by Garmin, featuring GPS, a touching screen, and a Web browser.

The nuvifone, which Garmin unveiled this week, compounds a cell phone, a Web browser, and GPS. Its slender word form factor, 3.5-inch touch screen, and on-screen keypad resemble another device that took the mobile marketplace by violent storm last year: the iPhone.

"This is the discovery merchandise that cell telephone and general practitioners users around the human race have got been yearning for -- a single device that makes it all," said Cliff Pemble, Garmin's president and COO, in a statement.

Unlike the iPhone, the nuvifone is a general practitioners personal sailing master and have built-in third-generation cellular engineering for high-speed data access. The place silver screen characteristics three icons: call, search, and position map for simple entree to the phone's functions. Additionally, the phone's general practitioners works with the built-in camera to take images that are automatically tagged with latitude and longitude. Users can e-mail images to others, who can then voyage to the location where it was taken, said Garmin.

Once the nuvifone is docked onto a vehicle mount, the general practitioners turns on automatically, the pilotage bill of fare is activated, and a individual is then able to do hands-free calls while simultaneously using the pilotage function, according to Garmin. The telephone come ups with maps of North United States and Europe, as well as a built-in database with billions of points of interest. It works just like Garmin's criterion general practitioners devices, offering turn-by-turn hearable directions.

The nuvifone is also Garmin's first device with the Google local hunt application, which functions up nearby locales based on a person's current location.

Garmin said the nuvifone will be available in the 3rd one-fourth of this year, but didn't supply inside information on specific marketplaces and pricing.

There were over a billion mobile telephones shipped last year, according to ABI Research. GPS, digital cameras, mass media players, and other capablenesses are being incorporate into telephones to make multifunctional devices. Garmin, Google, Apple, and others see the mobile telephone marketplace as the adjacent large opportunity, even though the companies are not traditional telephone players.