August 17th, 2009TomTom navigation for iPhone 3G and 3GS arrives
True, it’s not the first app offering turn-by-turn driving instructions for the iPhone 3G or iPhone 3GS — but it is from TomTom, an industry heavy-weight that is finally delivering on years of rumor and speculation. After starting with New Zealand a few hours ago, the iTunes App Store is now populated with region specific TomTom apps for NZ ($95), Australia ($80), US and Canada ($100), and Western Europe ($140). If that sounds expensive… it is; dedicated TomTom navigators start at $120. In other words, this isn’t one of those knee-jerk 99 cent App Store purchases. Naturally, that price does not include the announced TomTom iPhone car kit (rumored to cost £113.85 (about $194) with bundled mapping software) that mounts and charges your iPhone 3G or 3GS while enhancing its GPS performance, speaker, and microphone. Our advice: wait for the reviews before dedicating your non multi-tasking iPhone to the dashboard for navigation duties.
We’d still venture to say that all signs are pointing toward an iPhone launch on China Unicom before too long, but one key element of the launch — Unicom’s upfront buy — is now in question. A spokesman for China’s third-largest carrier (which is an amazingly low rank considering they’ve got about as many subscribers as Verizon and AT&T combined) has denied earlier reports that they’ve stockpiled five million handsets in preparation for launch, saying that negotiations with Apple are still ongoing. We imagine that when you’re dealing with a nine-figure subscriber count, any hardware negotiation is complex, tense, and filled with counteroffers, so there’s no telling how much longer this process could take.
State-owned China Unicom Ltd. said Friday it is talking with Apple Inc. about becoming an iPhone carrier but denied a report it has reached a deal and will buy 5 million handsets.
China is the world’s most populous mobile phone market and iPhones are produced in China by an Apple contractor for export. Apple has yet to sign up a Chinese partner but thousands of unlocked iPhones brought in from other markets are in use in China.
“Talks between us and Apple have been going on for some time, but no agreement has been reached yet,” said Unicom spokesman Yi Difei. “There are all kinds of possibilities. There is no particular timetable for the talks.”
Yi declined to give details. But he denied a report by the newspaper China Business News that Unicom secured a three-year exclusive iPhone deal and would pay 10 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) for handsets.
