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TomTom delivers £60 iPhone navigation app

By Stuart Turton

Posted on 17 Aug 2009 at 10:29

TomTom's turn-by-turn navigation app has officially arrived on the iPhone.

Forgot those 99 pence impulse buys though, the TomTom app with maps of the UK and Ireland is going to set you back a hefty £59.99. Anybody looking for maps of Western Europe will be shelling out £79.99.

The app includes most of the features of its big brothers, including TomTom's IQ Routes technology, which plans routes based on the experience of other drivers, hopefully avoiding roads prone to traffic jams during certain hours.

It's also intended to offer more realistic journey times, taking into account slow, winding roads and other factors, rather than offering wildly optimistic estimates.

The company's also claiming to have worked hard to make use of the iPhone's more esoteric features and so alongside the typical multitouch gestures to scroll and zoom, the maps can also be flipped into landscape mode and destinations plucked from the iPhone's address book.

The app is compatible with the iPhone 3G and 3Gs, though TomTom is promising that it will be arriving on the iPod touch soon.

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User comments

Worth mentioning Co-Pilot Live

Which is also available for the iPhone and (only) costs £25. The TomTom user interface might be better but is it worth over twice the price? Especially when TomTom uses inferior TeleAtlas mapping (major errors I reported 3 years ago still not fixed), whereas CoPilot uses superior NavTeq maps.

By PaulOckenden on 17 Aug 2009

Rival Navigon,

I downloaded and installed Navigon recently - It's brilliant, shuts off itunes to tell you stuff then brings the music back again.. only issue is no Traffic, and not sure how often the maps will be updated.

By Ip_andrewpinka74 on 17 Aug 2009

Missed a trick

No custom POIs, no "live" functionality such as traffic, no news of the new mount and twice the price of Copilot. No thanks.

By teecee90 on 17 Aug 2009

Wait for version 2

Pricing seems reasonable as it's about £10 more than buying just the maps for a normal TomTom.

But I agree, it seems a missed opportunity not to include LIVE services when it's running on a phone.

By halsteadk on 17 Aug 2009

Copliot

I agree with the above post. Copilot is only £26 (or £50 for maps of all of europe). Are we seeing another apple tax?

By jagdipa on 17 Aug 2009

ipod touch

how could this work on an ipod touch without network or 3g access and if there is no wi fi available during your journey?

By eliot94 on 17 Aug 2009

Clintons cards are doing a deal at the moment. Buy 2 x £15 iTunes cards for £20. So buy two lots and you can get the TomTom for £40.

By bigrob14 on 20 Aug 2009

buyer beware

ships with v8.3 maps; current version v8.35. I believe this makes the 8.3 15 months old.

NO free update to the latest maps if released within 1 month (which you can with standalone)

NO mapshare updates (which you can with standalone)

NO abililty to subscribe to map updates, which is the cheapest way of always having the latest maps

NO live features e.g. traffic

NO ability to add custom POIs or edit existing POIs, so no 3rd party speedcams etc.

iPhone GPS not very accurate (for me anyway). Probably REQUIRES the v. expensive tomtom car kit (>£100).

By findlay on 1 Sep 2009