iPhone5-Navigation
It was announced from the Apple WWDC that a new hardware is coming on your way in the new iPhone 5. As the news was made everyone was having an eye what will come and how will it work. Apple announced that they are going to update maps and mapping features for the iOS platform. Many analysts and people found this news very disruptive because according to them Apple cannot bring more good mapping system than Google mapping service. The current mapping system of Apple is Google but Apple announced that it is introducing its own system now. TomTom and OpemStreetMaps and others are the GPS in-car venders. I think Apple is putting itself in the center of the action. This is not only the change that Apple is bringing in the mapping system , it also unveiled that it is bringing the most latest and asked feature i.e. turn by turn navigation. This will make the new navigation system complete failure. iPhone and iPad will be used more conveniently in the car by this new application. In the previous iPhone models and iPad this turn by turn navigation was not provided by Apple. People who want this feature have to buy this application from some other app seller. When apple will offer this feature in new mobile than no one will go for purchasing this software from other companies. This will makes GPS market to face a huge loss. The companies that will face huge decline in their sale are Tomtom and Garmin. The in-car GPS system is not cheap at all. These are quite expensive.
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Apple sells millions of iPhones and iPads every quarter. People easily get themselves shift from an old model with the latest one. Buying the latest iPhone or iPad is far cheap than buying in-car GPS system. TomTom and Garman also earn huge money by selling annual map updates. iPhone and iPad users will not have to pay for the updates. Apple itself manages the update at its end. This will give the user benefit but in the same way it will hurt the bottom line of the in-car GPS unit. GPS venders make a plan to cope with the Apple. They will offer the customer to make an initial investment for the app and then pay extra for the updates and traffic information. But no one with a sensible mind will go for these devices when Apple is providing them these features free of costs. But this will not be true for all the users. Because some people will always favors a dedicated device to a convergence device. It is the same reason that we see many people having Apple in hand and on the other hand they are holding compact camera to take pictures. Apple is used by millions of people and when this feature will be provided than GPS markets will face serious trouble. TomTom has put itself in safe position by licensing maps to Apple. It is far sure that after one year in-car GPS market landscape will be at a different place