With a new TomTom application coming soon to the App Store, plus a car kit especially for the 3G iPhone, the independent satnav device will soon be redundant for Apple fans.
Announced earlier today during Apple’s keynote speech at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), TomTom’s co-founder and CTO Peter-Frans Pauwels demoed the firm’s iPhone software in conjunction with a secure docking car kit for hands-free calling and in-car charging.
The software itself will be an Apple version of TomTom’s existing turn-by-turn navigation software, including IQ Routes and all the latest maps from Tele Atlas.
While there is no pricing or release date set as yet for either the application or car kit, these will be announced ahead of the launch later this summer. The pricing for this particular app will be interesting because it is unlikely that TomTom will set the price for complicated satnav software at anywhere below the US$40 mark, as this could possibly undercut the entire market.
However, the software itself will not be much use in-car unless the iPhone can be docked and rotated horizontally, so the car kit may well comprise the bulk of the pricing.
