Everyone and their brother, me included, has been wondering if turn-by-turn GPS navigation is coming to the iPhone. What NO ONE has said (out loud, at least) is the word, “TeleNav.”  Kinda makes you wonder why…

If you remember, I posted something on this earlier this week.  Apparently, there are, what..? “complicated issues..?” that Apple needs to work out. Many are speculating that the complicated issues are actually licensing (read revenue) based.  Who is going to get what cut of the pie?  If its gotta come through the App Store, Apple is going to want to take their cut, and  I’m CERTAIN the program author is complaining that its too large a cut.

Which leads me to the burning, $64 thousand dollar question… Where the heck is TeleNav, the AT&T branded GPS solution, in all of this?? You would think that the iPhone 3G/iPhone 2.0 firmware would have been released with the app stub built in (like in many Windows Mobile devices, such as my Tilt, offered on AT&T). You sign up, download the app, and boom, you’re navigating… Oh yeah… I forgot about those “complicated issues…”

The way I see it, kids, its more than just a revenue complication. Here are the issues:

  1. Application Delivery - Getting the app into the Apple App Store should be easy enough.  Apple already has a process for that, but what does that mean for TeleNav (and other navigation solutions)?  AT&T already has an app delivery system set up for TeleNav; and retooling that delivery system for the iPhone may be proving to be problematic, as they are going to have to change things on the back end (app servers, FTP servers, etc.)
  2. Map Data Delivery - How will maps be delivered?  TeleNav just sends you map data OTA (over the air) on your current location and basic surrounding area.  As you move, additional data is sent to the device, OTA. When your navigation session is over, that data is cleared out of the device, in theory.  When you start a new session, any remaining data on the device is replaced with map data of your current location.

 

Traditional PDA-based navigation systems, like iGuidance or TomTom, included map data on a CD/DVD or Storage Card. Map data was either preconfigured on that storage media, or you pulled a custom map together with a map loader program. Either way, that data was either (most likely) transferred to a storage card and then placed in your PDA, as it was larger than available, native memory on the device; or used off of the storage card directly. Without storage card slots on the iPhone 3G, this delivery system has to be reengineered…Its gotta work via iTunes somehow, kids; and right now, its not a matter of storage. iPhone 3G comes in 8G/16G flavors. Its a matter of figuring out how to get the data on the device, without taking up gigabytes of storage space.

Honestly, with all of the time that app vendors have had, you would think that these issues would have been worked through.  I would have at LEAST thought TeleNav would have been available at launch.

I think this is most of the nut that needs to be cracked. If anyone can think of anything else that I might have missed, please feel free to mention it in the discussion and give us your thoughts!