TomTom to Ship First PND with Apps

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Apps are a driving force behind our love affair with smartphones, so why not include them on a portable navigation device (PND)?

TomTom has done just that in its new GO LIVE 1535M, which it calls the first PND with built-in apps. At $249, the device is also the lowest priced connected-PND from TomTom, undercutting the previous leader—the GO LIVE 2535 ($349) by $100.

TomTom GO LIVE 1535Twitter, Yelp, TripAdvisor, Expedia, Google, and apps for fuel prices, safety cameras and weather are pre-installed on the PND which has built-in AT&T wireless service. You don’t get full Twitter, but the device will automatically tweet your estimated time of arrival if you choose, or notify friends that you’ve arrived at a restaurant.

Yelp gives you ratings and reviews of nearby restaurants and hotels and then lets you navigate to your destination with a single tap. TripAdvisor also shows  hotel and restaurant reviews and suggests things to do in a city, pointing out historic sites, museums, etc. Expedia provides hotel information in real time including room vacancies and accurate room prices. But it does not let you book a room directly from the PND.

The new “App PND” has a 5-inch screen and a slim line form with a built-in foldable mount. It includes HD Traffic, TomTom’s real time, crowd-source traffic service that claims more road coverage and more accurate reports than other services.

If 10 percent of drivers used HD Traffic, it would reduce overall traffic by 15 percent, says TomTom.

HD Traffic presents updates every 2 minutes and covers not only highways but side roads so it can better reroute around traffic without steering you into another jam on a back road. It covers 6 million miles of roads compared to TMC’s 500,000 miles, said TomTom.

The GO LIVE 1535 will be available in the fall.

Source: TomTom

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