Inrix Traffic!
Inrix is the company that powers or supplements quite a few traffic related services, including the (discontinued) Dash Express during my tenure at Dash Navigation (acquired by RIM). And while Inrix typically licenses their data to others, the iPhone app is completely free – perfect for getting a quick read on the situation. As we did (above) while sitting in a backup Labor Day weekend, returning from Monterey to Silicon Valley. The majority of Inrix data is culled from municipal road sensors and vehicle fleets. However, they also claim to instantly (and anonymously) update their Smart Driver Network with your location, speed, and heading via the iPhone’s GPS when using the app. Although I’ve never kept Inrix Traffic! up for more than a minute or two to analyze current road conditions where I’m at or where I’m headed. Often from a parked car.
Aha Mobile
Speaking of Dash Navigation, my former colleague Robert Acker (also an XM alumnus) now heads up Aha Mobile. Unlike a typical driving gadget or service, Aha’s free app doesn’t rely on a moving map. Or many visuals at all for that matter. Instead, Aha assumes you know where you are most of the time and relies heavily on audio cues – computer generated speech of nearby traffic alerts (using Inrix traffic data) and recorded “shouts” from this new community of connected drivers. As seen in the pic above right, Aha can also identify very specific nearby points of interest (coffee, food, restrooms). Not shown is the new feature to automatically share your shouts on Facebook and Twitter… should you feel so compelled. But right now there’s not much going on given Aha’s few regular, active contributors. Which is why I need you to join me.
AT&T Navigator (aka Telenav)
AT&T’s Navigator (Telenav) is exactly what you’d expect from a traditional GPS application. However, AT&T Navigator is fundamentally different from the competing TomTom ($100), Navigon ($90), and recently updated CoPilot Live ($35) iPhone apps that install maps onto your device, and possibly require additional upgrade fees. Telenav is both an app and a service ($10/month)… which pulls map elements from their servers. Theoretically their maps should always be the most up to date, but continually pulling data from the cloud as one drives will take an additional toll on iPhone battery life. While I’ve seen many complain about AT&T/Telenav’s monthly fee, there’s no commitment required. Meaning, if you’ve got an upcoming business or work trip, activate service for just one month as needed.
On that same Labor Day Weekend getaway to the Bay Area, I compared our TomTom 140-S to evaluation service of AT&T Navigator… which was the clear winner and very helpful on our journey. The TomTom hardware includes a louder speaker and windshield mount, but in all other areas Telenav was superior. In fact, I didn’t realize how poor TomTom’s text to speech street name pronunciation was until I ran it side by side with Telenav. Telenav map accuracy and directions were solid as well, with real-time traffic (Inrix, again!). Plus, data entry was a snap whether typing destinations manually, choosing from on-board contacts, or cutting & pasting street addresses that we looked up in Mobile Safari.
I’ve found in some urban areas that Gokivo subscribes to a more full traffic feed from Inrix than Telenav does, though.
Although, if RIM puts Dash to good use (ie: phone app!) omg will I be there so fast.
I assume the rumored iPhone Dash app was killed when they were acquired by RIM and that a Blackberry-only experience is being developed.
Just don’t expect Telenav to know what the Dulles Toll road when drive beyond the beltway towards I66. At least not on Sprint’s version of telenav.
Thomas – are you running into routing issues in this area? We can try to troubleshoot – please email me with specifics – marybethl@telenav.com. Thanks.
Does this seem like anyone else as a rather stagnant area of technology? With major points of difference being things like pronunciation of street names and such, it seems splitting hairs when talking about the primary purpose of these devices. Certainly accuracy is noteable, but this should be a foregone conclusion at this point. It seems like we’re almost to a point where this merges into other apps… Driving to a restaurant, load the yelp gps app. Or starts merging that kind of data into the gps apps: lead me to a recommended open Italian restaurant in the 20-30 a plate price range.
Yeah, we do need more interesting and practical convergence. We’re seeing bits and pieces here and there. But you’re right that we’re in sort of a boring commodity holding pattern sort of space. By the way, Telenav does offer restaurant ratings and Aha links Yelp reviews.
I guess this is a classic curse of being a product guy… Getting frustrated when features are added in a non-meaningful way. I suppose it could be a source of comfort to my engineers to hear that this pet peeve of mine extends beyond our product. :)
Good to see some progress is being made. I suppose some kudos should go to AT&T for structuring their pricing in an up-front way vs. the trick of charging the same price as the initial cost for map updates.
The obvious way for something like a Dash service to get widely deployed and have really good data is for there to be one standard, supported across many apps. Not Tom Tom’s IQ Routes, but something like this Inrix application, or at least Inrix technology in every GPS app on every platform. Plus of course multitasking. If I have my iPhone plugged in, and you can tell by bluetooth that I’m in the car, this service should just start running in the background and providing data on my speed and location to Inrix. Anonymously of course. Yet we’re unlikely to see this.
So instead I get the fabulous “0 to 40 miles per hour” stuff from the semi-useless roadside monitors. Plus data that is so far behind reality that its often near useless.
Kinda sad really. Its almost not even a technology problem.
I tried Aha, and abandoned it very quickly. I’ll try the Inrix application and see if its useful. If they’d provide a way to control playback while in the app, I’d likely use it more often…
question ?
why the gps feature dont work on my iphone 3gs
does it has to do with the location
i live in europe btw