Do people with a Smartphone believe that Sat Navs will eventually be replaced by Smartphone apps?

Do you use your Smartphone as a sat nav, how good/bad is it (and prices plz).

I saw on BBC Click yesterday about an app called Haze which could also threaten the "HD traffic" tarriff that sat nav manufacturers charge too.

I used the satnav I downloaded on my old Nokia 5800 in spain last year and it worked a treat. Have been thinking of getting a N97 mini and using their free service as I've heard that thats pretty good.

Not sure about the Haze app, but in general Smartphone satnavs will replace a lot of the dedicated units.

Apparently after Nokia announced their free satnav software, the share price of TomTom plummeted - over the last month the high was €7, since the Nokia announcement its dropped to €5.25.

I've always tended to believe in convergence of devices, and the dedicated satnavs don't generally do anything that the smartphones don't - apart from being suitable for use in all weathers.

I've been using Sygic McGuider on the N95 and N85, and its been a good application. When Nokia release the free version for the previous generations of phones, then I'll be installing it as soon as I can.

I have to say, I prefer using the SatNav on my phone to my dedicated TomTom unit. I've got Garmin installed on my Nokia 5800 and find it to be excellent. Think the main difference is the ease with which the online functions like traffic updates, etc are accessed. No pairing required, as obviously the connections are already there.

The only thing which is slightly better on the TomTom is the screen size is bigger. Although I'm intending to install a 7" screen into the dash of my car, and use the video out on my phone whilst using the Sat Nav!

I have been using TomTom and not Ovi Maps on my phones for years. Started out with TomTom on the 5580 in 2005.
Never bothered with a dedicated sat nav device as I never saw the point, especially now with mobile screen getting bigger

I use Co-Pilot on my iPhone and it works just as well as a standalone sat nav. I think sat navs will go eventually, but it will take time. Most smartphones can replace an iPod already but a lot of people still haven't got smartphones yet so they continue to sell iPods and standalone sat navs.

Aren't smart phones GPS systems usable in all weather?

Some interesting comments here, I'm leaning more towards the iPhone at the minute.

I'm guessing with Symbian or Android based phones that GPS apps are likely to be cheaper?

Try putting a phone for SatNav on the bars of a motorbike or mountain bike and use it in the rain. The phone will die. A purpose-built satnav from Garmin will work in any kind of weather.

The iPhone will be okay for SatNav, but massively more expensive than something like a Nokia 5230. Sure, the screen on the Nokia is a little smaller, but the whole phone and satnav can be had for less than the price of TomTom for the iPhone!

I use an Android phone, which provides SatNav services based on Google maps. In other words, no boundaries to the mapping data (if you cough up the data roaming charges when abroad), and zoom-in all the way to street level where available.

I think that's pretty cool.

Out of idle curiosity...

If you have Sat-Nav on a Smartphone, what happens when a phone call comes in?

I have a Tom-Tom unit and a phone, separate devices. So I have no problems at all using both at the same time. But what about if they are the same device? What compromises does that involve?

With Nokia it is free


Call over rides the navigation. Of course you can put the phone in off line mode and essentially stop calls coming in. In reality this is not a problem as when you need the sat nav with no distractions (driving) then you shouldn't be on the phone anyway!

However, I think once the phone call has been accepted the navigation screen comes back on so both will work independently. Of course, I could say how that would work on the iPhone with it's build in inability to multitask

And bounce better too!

And until sat-nav on a smartphone lets you plan interesting routes on the computer avoiding the boring main roads and download them to the sat-nav then my trusty old Garmin 2610 will continue to be my faithful companion when on tour. I do like having full postcode search on my Nokia 5800 but I seem to have managed for years without it. But curiously the Nokia does not let you mark you current position so my old Garmin eTrex Vista will also come along for the ride too useful when I wander off into the countryside or a strange town and want to find my way back to the parked bike.

It does, sort of. Just save your current position to the favourites. Of course you will have to keep deleting them from time to time!!

Ah, ok. That would suffice. My eTrex vista still has a use though for tracking and measuring my jogging / cycling routes and uploading them to the computer for analysis.

This is one of the nice things on Symbian .... full multi tasking.

When I've been using either TomTom (on the N95) or Sygic McGuider (on the N85), when a call comes in you just get a little handset/incoming call notification pop up at the bottom of the display, press the answer button on my bluetooth headset and just talk away. Satnav keeps on working absolutely perfectly.

Or if I'm stuck in traffic and something "interesting" happens, or I see a rather fancy car - undock the phone from its cradle, flip open the lens cover, take a picture, close lens cover. Satnav was still working all the time ....

Nice, unless the idiot coder writes a process in a way that has a habit of locking out all the other processes. Which tends to happen quite a lot on a Nokia 5800.

Do the programmers ever get any training on writing for multi-tasking systems?

Not had that once on my N73, N95 or N85. I'm getting the feeling I'm going to be steering clear of all Touch UIs now. Although I have an irrational urge to look at the HTC HD2.