What on earth is happening with "Russia's GPS"?
Much ballyhooed satellite navigation system suffers technical setbacks and paucity of devices. Who will guide Father Frost?
By Julia Ioffe, contributor
Glonass staffers hope to compete with GPS. Photo: Glonass.
Late last month Moscow celebrated the birthday of Father Frost, the Russian iteration of Santa Claus, with a new-fangled announcement: Father Frost’s retinue would move through the holiday skies aided by Glonass, the Russian answer to GPS.
Eagerly waiting children could track his movement online, while he could simultaneously improve his gift-giving efficiency. “Now Father Frost can be sure,” his press release said. “He can monitor his helpers through the Internet, even when he himself leaves for another city.”
It is unclear, however, how well Glonass will be able to aid Team Frost. The Glonass network (much like America’s Global Positioning System, a Cold War defense and missile-tracking system that was eventually opened to civilian use) was envisioned as an equal competitor to its U.S. counterpart.
But Glossnass recently has suffered some technical setbacks. More
The smartphone as navigator
New software transforms your phone into a GPS device – and a pretty good one, too
Navigon's MobileNavigator app for the iPhone has features some standalone units lack. Photo: Navigon.
As my wife will tell you, I have a comically bad sense of direction. I once got lost driving home from the mall.
This makes me a prime candidate for a GPS device. I’ve used a few for brief stints, mostly on long road trips, but never got into the habit of using one for everyday errands. There are a couple of reasons for that. For one, it’s a hassle to dig the thing out of the glove compartment. For another, entering an address on most of these things is a crazy-making experience.
My perspective changed recently, though, when I bought a new GPS unit for $70. Well, that’s not exactly what happened. I actually downloaded a GPS-based iPhone (AAPL) app for $70.
Yes, 70. Seven-zero. I’ll be the first to admit that it sounds crazy to pay that much for software that runs on a phone. The overwhelming majority of phone apps out there cost between 99 cents and $10. More
Heavy duty car navigation comes to the iPhone
Map: TomTom
TomTom, one of the leading manufacturers of stand-alone GPS systems, rolled out its industrial strength iPhone car navigation software across the time zones Sunday, starting in New Zealand and ending with an app for the U.S. and Canadian markets early Monday.
The price, $99.99 for the app and its maps (a car mount adaptor kit is sold separately), is high for an iPhone application and puts it well above competing software-only products such as Sygic Mobile Maps ($39.99), CoPilot Live ($34.99) or the free built-in Google Map app.
But for travelers who depend on such things, it's a better deal than AT&T's (T) Navigator, a subscription service in which the app is free but the service adds $10 to your monthly cell phone bill for as long as you use it. (See The App Store takes a bad turn.)
TomTom's app stirred some interest in the tech press after Apple (AAPL) selected it to be one of the featured demos at its World Wide Developers Conference in June. In addition to TomTom's proprietary maps and the TeleAtlas, which it acquired in 2008 for $4.8 billion in a bidding war with rival Garmin (GRMN), it offers several features custom made for the iPhone OS. These include, according to its promo material:
