One thing that strikes me about the global navigation and location markets is the rapid pace of change.

It’s not only the products and technology that are in constant flux, but consumer demand and market strength also fluctuate considerably.

Around this time last year I was researching the ‘Navigation & Location Europe’ conference and I was speaking to lots of LBS application developers who were telling me one thing: They wanted more support from mobile operators. This essentially came down to two points – with the lack of GPS enabled phones on the market they wanted easy and unrestricted access to Cell ID information. But, moreover, they wanted much greater help from operators when it came to promoting and getting their applications to market.

What an exciting week for location news. Since I arrived back from the Navigation & Location Europe conference in Amsterdam it’s been all go for Nav&Loc!

 

A new statistic from ABI caught my eye today. ABI has said that studies suggest 34% of all PNDs from firms including Magellan, Mio, TomTom and Dash will ship with onboard connectivity by 2013.

ABI has very kindly provided us with their 'connectivity in navigation' whitepaper, and I've included it amongst many other insightful whitepapers, reports and articles in a report portfolio that you can download absolutely free. Click here to get it!   

It's been a glum couple of weeks for the navigation industry... Is the honeymoon period over? Well judging by recent news it seems that the party may be winding down. GPS chip manufacturers Sirf Technology has certainly felt the crunch. After announcing plans to lay off 7% of their workforce and with share prices sinking the firm is warning of hard times ahead.

Nokia is preparing its response to Apple's iPhone with a device currently codenamed 'tube'. It will support Java and I'm guessing (with Nokia's current commitment to mobile navigation and location) it will include GPS. Vice President of Forum Nokia, Tom Libretto, also provided an entertaining quip and dig at Apple... In reference to Apple having shipped 5 million to 6 million iPhones since launch, Libretto responded "We've done that since dinner on Friday." Nice!

Interesting news today; TomTom shares have fallen 10% after expected sales were down to between 1.8bn and 2.0bn Euros, down from its February estimate of 2.0-2.2bn Euros. The company blamed having to make earlier than expected price cuts. But does this signal a change in fortunes for the navigation industry? For the full article click here

It’s always good to squeeze in some stats. So, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity with this new report by ABI Research. For the full article click here

The iPhone is cool - let’s face it. And that dent in my wallet is looking increasingly likely with navigation applications popping up all the time. Plus, it seems that location enhanced social networking is much talked about, but rarely seen! So, when I saw that our good friends Gypsii were putting their app onto the iPhone, I thought it was worth a mention. Click here to learn more about Gypsii and their social networking application.

Well, we hate to say we told you so. (Check out the location session on the agenda!) The ever innovative Skyhook Wireless, providers of Wi-Fi positioning technologies for Iphone, have announced that they are working on blending GPS and Cell ID with Wi-Fi to improve location technology. Hopefully, this will mean a greater fix constancy in urban areas paving the way for a host of exciting location applications!