GPS & related services have been evolving to include several features like 3D view, traffic information and free navigation.
GPS & related services have been evolving to include several features like 3D view, traffic information and free navigation.
The New Services
Live traffic information is the newest tool available to frazzled commuters on crowded roads. MapmyIndia currently offers this for Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore, on a variety of devices, apps & in-car systems. Ali Rizvi, national sales manager at Garmin India also spoke about some innovations. "The GTU 10 is our smallest tracking device ever. The interesting thing is that you can track it using free apps for iOS and Android. You can also set up 'Geofences' — a pre-defined geographical area — the device can alert you if it wanders outside the Geo-fence. The Zumo is a highquality motorcycle navigator. One of the accessories is a Bluetooth-enabled helmet. The rider can get voice directions, directly inside the helmet."
Free Vs Paid Navigation
Now that free navigation is already available to Nokia and Android smartphone users, why should a user pay for a standalone device or service? Rohan Verma, director of MapmyIndia was quick to respond. "We don't see navigation as a choice between mobile phone and having an in-car device — most countries have moved towards navigation on multiple screens; on the mobile phone as well as on an in-car device. In-car devices give you the comfort and reliance of being dedicatedly available for navigation, entertainment and safety — with full, on-board maps that don't depend on internet connectivity." While that makes sense, it remains to be seen how many users will want to pay more, knowing that it's free on their phones.
GPS - How it really works
THE GPS satellite system was initially developed by the US military for their own use. Today, it powers millions of GPS devices and helps countless businesses accross the globe. The question is, how can so many different devices use the same global network of just 24 satellites? Simply because all GPS devices that you use are 'receivers' — they only receive a signal from the satellite without really communicating with it. This is why the satellites are free to use — you only pay for the maps or specific services. Basis the information that each GPS receiver gets from the satellites, it triangulates an accurate location on the Earth's surface, which is then matched to map data.
Free Navigatiaon Apps
Google Navigation (Android)
With the latest update, Google has added free voice-guided navigation for devices running Android 2.2 and above.
Without spending a Rupee, you get driving, public transit & walking directions.
It also includes live traffic information (currently for Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Pune & Hyderabad) & 3D landmarks.
Nokia Maps (Windows Phone)
Nokia offers multiple apps for navigation to Lumia Windows Phone users — Nokia Maps, Nokia Drive and Nokia Transport.
You can save maps of various cities for offline use, get free voice-guided navigation, day/night display mode as well as a 2D/3D view. All this will also be available on all Windows Phone 8 devices.
If you were taking a college course called iPhone 101, your professor might identify three factors that have made Apple's smartphone a mega-success.
First, design. A single company, known for its obsession over details, produces both the hardware and the software. The result is a single, coherently designed whole.
Second, superior components. As the world's largest tech company, Apple can call the shots with its parts suppliers. It can often incorporate new technologies - scratch-resistant Gorilla glass, say, or the supersharp Retina screen - before its rivals can.
Third, compatibility. The iPhone's ubiquity has led to a universe of accessories that fit it. Walk into a hotel room, and there's probably an iPhone connector built into the alarm clock.
If you had to write a term paper for this course, you might open with this argument: that in creating the new iPhone 5 ($200 with contract), Apple strengthened its first two advantages - but handed its rivals the third one on a silver platter.
Let's start with design. The new phone, in all black or white, is beautiful. Especially the black one, whose gleaming, black-on-black, glass-and-aluminum body carries the design cues of a Stealth bomber.
The rumors ran rampant that the iPhone 5 would have a larger screen. Would it be huge, like on many Android phones? Those giant screens are thudding slabs in your pocket, but they're fantastic for maps, books, websites, photos and movies.
As it turns out, the new iPhone's updated footprint (handprint?) is nothing like the Imax size of its rivals. It's the same 2.3 inches wide, but its screen has grown taller by half an inch - 176 very tiny pixels.
It's a nice but not life-changing change. You gain an extra row of icons on the Home screen, more messages in email lists, wider keyboard keys in landscape mode and a more expansive view of all the other built-in apps. (Non-Apple apps can be written to exploit the bigger screen. Until then, they sit in the center of the larger screen, flanked by unnoticeable slim black bars.)
At 0.3 inch, the phone is thinner than before, startlingly so - the thinnest in the world, Apple says. It's also lighter, just under 4 ounces; it disappears in your pocket. This iPhone is so light, tall and flat, it's well on its way to becoming a bookmark.
Second advantage: components. There's no breakthrough feature this time, no Retina screen or Siri. (Thought recognition will have to wait for the iPhone 13.)
Even so, nearly every feature has been upgraded, with a focus on what counts: screen, sound, camera, speed.
The iPhone 5 is now a 4G LTE phone, meaning that in certain lucky cities, you get wicked-fast Internet connections. (Verizon has by far the most LTE cities, with AT&T a distant second and Sprint at the rear.)
The phone itself runs faster, too. Its new processor runs twice as fast, says Apple. Few people complained about the old phone's speed, but this one certainly zips.
The screen now has better color reproduction. The front-facing camera captures high-definition video now (720p). The battery offers the same talk time as before (eight hours) but adds two more hours of Web browsing (eight hours), even on LTE networks. In practical terms, you encounter fewer days when the battery dies by dinnertime - a frequent occurrence with 4G phones.
The camera is among the best ever put into a phone. Its lowlight shots blow away the same efforts from an iPhone 4S. Its shot-to-shot times have been improved by 40 percent. And you can take stills even while recording video (1080p hi-def, of course).
So far, so good. But now, the third point, about universal compatibility.
These days, that decade-old iPhone/iPad/iPod charging connector is everywhere: cars, clocks, speakers, docks, even medical devices. But the new iPhone won't fit any of them.
Apple calls its replacement the Lightning connector. It's much sturdier than the old jack, and much smaller - 0.31 inch wide instead of 0.83. And there's no right side up - you can insert it either way. It clicks satisfyingly into place, yet you can remove it easily. It's the very model of a modern major connector.
Well, great. But it doesn't fit any existing accessories, docks or chargers. Apple sells an adapter plug for $30 (or $40 with an eight-inch cable "tail"). If you have a few accessories, you could easily pay $150 in adapters for a $200 phone. That's not just a slap in the face to loyal customers - it's a jab in the eye.
Even with the adapter, not all accessories work with the Lightning, and not all the features of the old connector are available; for example, you can't send the iPhone's video out to a TV cable.
Apple says that a change was inevitable - that old connector, after 10 years, desperately needed an update. Maybe so, but Apple has just given away one of its greatest competitive advantages.
The new phone comes with new software, called iOS 6, bristling with large and small improvements - and it's a free download that also runs on the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S.
The chief attractions of iOS 6 are a completely new GPS/maps app (Apple ditched Google Maps and wrote its own app); new talents for Siri, the voice-activated assistant (she now answers questions about current movies, sports and restaurants); and one-tap canned responses to incoming calls (like "I'm driving - call you later").
There's a new panorama mode for the camera, too, that comes in handy more often than you might expect. As you swing the phone around you, it stitches many shots together into a seamless, ultra-wide-angle, 28-megapixel photo. Unlike other apps and phones with panorama modes, this one is fully automated and offers a preview of the panorama that materializes as you're taking it.
Should you get the new iPhone, when the best Windows Phone and Android phones offer similarly impressive speed, beauty and features?
The iPhone 5 does nothing to change the pros and cons in that discussion. Windows Phones offer brilliant design but lag badly in apps and accessories.
Android phones shine in choice: You can get a huge screen, for example, a memory-card slot or NFC chips (near-field communication - you can exchange files with other NFC phones or buy things in certain stores with a tap). But Android is, on the whole, buggier, more chaotic and more fragmented - you can't always upgrade your phone's software when there's a new version.
IPhones don't offer as much choice or customization. But they're more polished and consistently designed, with a heavily regulated but better stocked app catalog. They offer Siri voice control and the best music/movie/TV store, and the phone's size and weight have boiled away to almost nothing.
If you have an iPhone 4S, getting an iPhone 5 would mean breaking your two-year carrier contract and paying a painful penalty; maybe not worth it for the 5's collection of nips and tucks. But if you've had the discipline to sit out a couple of iPhone generations - wow, are you in for a treat.
It's just too bad about that connector change. Doesn't Apple worry about losing customer loyalty and sales?
Actually, Apple has a long history of killing off technologies, inconveniently and expensively, that the public had come to love - even those that Apple had originally developed and promoted. Somehow, life goes on, and Apple gets even bigger.
So if you wanted to conclude your term paper by projecting the new connector's impact on the iPhone's popularity, you'd be smart to write, "very little (sigh)." When you really think about it, we've all taken this class before.
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