Mobility Watch

From Engadget: It’s not quite as elaborate as that 12-inch dual-view touchscreen found in the new 2010 Range Rover, but it looks like Chrysler’s 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee will come with own its share of in-dash amenities, including a GPS navigation system courtesy of Garmin. That’ll be integrated into the same 6.5-inch touchscreen used for Chrysler’s Uconnect radio and, of course, will offer everything you’d expect from a standalone GPS unit and then some, including lane assist, speed limit and current speed information, spoken street names, details on nearby points of interest, and even some spiffy customized Chrysler-specific icons.

And car buyers notebook says: GPS devices and navigation tools have become common in most cars today. Garmin Ltd. Is an identified leader in this niche and apparently we will be seeing their products for the new 2011 Chrysler Grand Cherokee which debuted at the New York Auto Show.

The program marks Garmin’s first major automotive navigation system to be installed at the factory. The system combines Garmin’s best-selling, affordable, and intuitive user interface into Chrysler’s Uconnect radio that merges technology and content into one 6.5” touchscreen display.

“Garmin is uniquely positioned to quickly bring the latest and greatest navigation technology to an in-dash environment – priced at a level that mainstream drivers can afford,” said Cliff Pemble, Garmin’s president and chief operating officer. “Being a navigation provider for Chrysler is a significant and long sought-after achievement for our company. We look forward to collaborating with them on this exciting project.”

The collaborative effort puts Garmin’s nüvi-like consumer experience – complete with affordable map updates – into an original equipment, in-dash radio. The navigator includes highly detailed Navteq maps of North America with nearly six million points of interest, as well as many cutting-edge features found in Garmin’s newest portable devices, like:

Lane Assist - guides you to the correct lane for an approaching turn or exit, making unfamiliar intersections and exits easy to navigate.
Junction View - realistically displays 3D road signs and junctions on your route along with arrows that indicate the proper lane for navigation.
Speed Limit & Current Speed – know at a glance whether you’re within the posted speed limit.
Where Am I? - get your exact latitude and longitude coordinates, the nearest address and intersection, and the closest hospitals, police stations and fuel stations.
Speaks Street Names – so you never have to take your eyes off the road.
Customized Vehicle Icons – personalize your navigation with Chrysler-specific icons.

If you were reading today’s earlier post about the new HP iPaq hw6920 series phones and you caught the mention of GPS, you may have wondered who the service provider for GPS was going to be.

Here’s the answer.  Cingular is rolling out a partnership with TeleNav, which provides turn by turn GPS service for Sprint Nextel and a few other providers.  Anyone with Cingular service and the appropriate GPS-enabled device (like the aforementioned HP phones) can sign up for $9.99 a month for unlimited trips.  If you don’t take unlimited trips, you can buy a package of ten trips for $5.99.

[via SlashGear]

Palm has offered GPS add-ons for Treos for some time now - but I gather they haven’t always worked perfectly. 

But the latest GPS navigation pack from Palm seems to have addressed the bugs in previous editions.  The new Treo navigation from is married to TomTom’s Navigator 6 software, and it works with Treo 650, 700w and 700p. 

An early review raves that, among other things, everything needed was included in the box (imagine that!), that the TomTom operating system now resides on the memory card, and that a single DVD contains all the maps that used to reside on 9 separate CDs.  It includes the ability to add on TomTom’s high end services like traffic reports.

At $299, it’s about half the price of buying a higher-end GPS unit for your car, never mind a factory-installed GPS unit.  (It’s also slightly less than the current street price for a Garmin i5, which is my pick for the best low-end GPS unit with pre-loaded maps.)

 

[via TG Daily, Palm InfoCenter]