Don’t take my word for it, have a look at the video. You’ll understand pretty quickly why the stock prices of both Garmin and TomTom have taken their respective nose dives.

But bear in mind, this is just a “beta” version of a rendition of Google Maps for Android phones. To its credit, it appears very flexible and it enables the phone users to use their own terms to say where they want to go. But I don’t come to praise Google, just to give them credit for creating a showcase for the features and functions that other providers of navigation devices should offer. It provides instant legitimacy and credibility for functions that as recently as yesterday were considered “futuristic.”

It delivers on the promise of “Internet-based, GPS navigation.” In its “car mode” it comes close to being totally hands-free and, in the spirit of everything else that Google is doing in this space, it is offered free-of-charge to end users.

Categories: Articles

Tags: mobile services, voice search