On Thursday, TeleNav announced that starting February 24, it will make its location-based service, TeleNav GPS Navigator, available to T-Mobile G1 owners, bringing real-time turn-by-turn navigation to the Google Android smartphone.
In addition to turn-by-turn driving directions, TeleNav GPS Navigator offers traffic alerts with one-click rerouting, business searches (with more than 10 million listings), gas prices, weather updates, and restaurant reviews.
Speech recognition is also supported. You’ll be able to press a button on the G1, dictate an address or business, and TeleNav will then route to the destination, explains C/Net. Alternatively, you can preplan trips through TeleNav’s Web site and send it to your phone.
TeleNav provides navigation services to a number of GPS-enabled smartphones and carriers, including Sprint and AT&T. Developing an application for Android and G1 owners was an important step for the company, according to TeleNav co-founder and Senior Director of Marketing Sal Dhanani.
ZDNet has a review (below).
The service will initially be available only through TeleNav but will then make its way to Android Market later this year. G1 users can go to TeleNav’s Web site to sign up for a 30-day free trial of the service; afterward, it will cost $9.99 per month for unlimited use. TeleNav would be a major application for the Android.
The Wall Journal says that Google will start offering paid apps in the Android Market this week. Unlike the iPhone App store, where Apple keeps 30 percent of the revenue, Android will allow third party programmers to keep the profits to themselves, says Wired.
Venture Beat says it was only about two months ago that Apple hit 10,000 applications available in the App Store for the iPhone and iPod touch devices. Last month Apple said the number had surged to 15,000 with 500 million downloads. This week, the number of apps has hit another milestone, 20,000, according to Apptism, a site that tracks iPhone apps.
With anywhere from 50 to 100 iPhone apps being added and updated on the App Store daily, it is nearly impossible to keep up. iPhone app rating and review sites like Apptism, Appvee, AppCraver, Appsafari, Freshapps, iPhonealley, and others help to highlight some of the best.
Mobile WiMAX promises to be faster and cheaper. Monthly data fees might be closer to $40/month (with no contract) vrs $60/mo (with a 2 year contract). Of course coverage is the big drawback — it will be severly limited for many years. Unless you live in Moscow or Portland.
Ethan Nicholas raked in $600,000 in a single month with a single iPhone game, says Wired. His tank artillery game called iShoot, rose to No. 1 in the App Store, earning him $37,000 in a single day.
Until recently, there has been no realistic way for individual programmers to make serious money on their own. Most of the software market is dominated by big companies, and the traditional distribution method for independent developers — shareware — isn’t conductive to striking it rich.
By contrast, Apple’s iTunes App Store provides a platform for marketing, selling and distributing software; all a developer needs to provide is a good idea and some working code.
The Guardian explains How to become an iPhone developer in eight easy steps.
