Successful iPhone app helps TomTom withstand free competitors

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  • Reply 21 of 50
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by lav1daloca View Post


    100'000 copies? how is this number impressive?

    Nokia's free Ovi Maps was downloaded 1.4 million times in the first week alone. That's impressive. Nokia sells about 100 million smartphones a year: guess what? All of them will come preloaded with free navigation. How is TomTom gonna survive that?



    Over a million downloads of a free app is not necessarily all that impressive. You should expect a free app to be downloaded a lot. Over a million copies of an app that costs almost $100 in a week; now that would be really impressive.
  • Reply 22 of 50
    swingeswinge Posts: 110member
    Love the tomtom app and the carkit as well.... I wasn't crazy about the handsfree speaker, but the carkit works great with music... I leave the headphoenes plugged in, double clicking to skip tracks .... With the 3GS it's great using voice control for music.... Thank you tomtom and Apple!!
  • Reply 23 of 50
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Abster2core View Post


    Having experienced a lot of marine nav systems from Loran, radar and then GPS, I had resolved not to purchase a GPS app for my iPhone until more reviews came in. Great spouse and sister-in-law made the decision easy for me.



    Testing with and without the car kit, definitely swayed me to keep the car kit. Speed, accuracy, hands-free calling, charging, and it looks and feels just beautiful.A



    As for the fact you can't really use the car kit with an cased iPhone, it doesn't bother me–don't use one at all. In fact, I was looking at the Magellan. It is touted to fit most hard shell cases or silicon skins. However, IMO, it doesn't look as nice. But I did hear that you can use the TomTom iPhone app in it.



    hey abster were you in the Navy? If so don't forget 'Omega' nav system 'round about the time of Loran C and A.



    I was a navigator out 'shooting' stars with a sextant for 3 hours every evening and morning!



    I remember when GPS first came out and only the Carriers had them and they could 'plot' themselves swinging around their anchor chain with a push of a button. When we got one in 1981 it was as big as the biggest microwave oven you ever seen! Now they're on a phone!
  • Reply 24 of 50
    Don't wast your cash on any expensive gps apps Motion X Drive is .099 cents !! with a yearly voice subscription of 25 $ works better than any high end gps app
  • Reply 25 of 50
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by cash4chaos View Post


    Don't wast your cash on any expensive gps apps Motion X Drive is .099 cents !! with a yearly voice subscription of 25 $ works better than any high end gps app



    I do like this app. It works beautifully.
  • Reply 26 of 50
    dcj001dcj001 Posts: 301member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by cash4chaos View Post


    Don't wast your cash on any expensive gps apps Motion X Drive is .099 cents !! with a yearly voice subscription of 25 $ works better than any high end gps app



    That's almost free!



    At ".099 cents" each, you can buy ten of them for one penny!
  • Reply 27 of 50
    Navigon is much better then TomTom. I wish I didn't get caught up in the hype that surrounded TomTom when it came out. Navigon uses less power, has better looking 3D maps, has nicer street view, better voice directions, more accurate street name pronunciation, and costs less money. Navigon pulled out of the North American market so they have less fear of cannibalization of their other products too.
  • Reply 28 of 50
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by christopher126 View Post


    hey abster were you in the Navy? If so don't forget 'Omega' nav system 'round about the time of Loran C and A.



    I was a navigator out 'shooting' stars with a sextant for 3 hours every evening and morning!



    I remember when GPS first came out and only the Carriers had them and they could 'plot' themselves swinging around their anchor chain with a push of a button. When we got one in 1981 it was as big as the biggest microwave oven you ever seen! Now they're on a phone!



    Army-signal corps. Didn't use the Omega: before my time. But a sextant, yes for personal boating.



    As a civilian, the first GPS were out 300 ft. and very expensive. Used both as backups to each other for quite some time.
  • Reply 29 of 50
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Woohoo! View Post


    The standalone TomTom has the similar problems you mentioned.



    Perhaps the issue was resolved in the cradle versions.



    He was talking about the standalone TomTom. (The TomTom app(w/o car kit): w/o means without)
  • Reply 30 of 50
    Apple rejected Google Maps with free navigation, true. TomTom earned a healthy profit because they were coddled by Apple, who just wanted to preserve its 30%. This is great news for the developer and Apple, but who is the real loser here? Exactly, all the people who paid for something offered at no charge outside the apple ecosystem. The situation itself boggles my mind, but the twisted reporting of it is just bizarre. Well, unless the developers outnumber the users here.
  • Reply 31 of 50
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,310moderator
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by lav1daloca View Post


    100'000 copies? how is this number impressive?

    Nokia's free Ovi Maps was downloaded 1.4 million times in the first week alone. That's impressive. Nokia sells about 100 million smartphones a year: guess what? All of them will come preloaded with free navigation. How is TomTom gonna survive that?



    I'm guessing they will survive because:



    100,000 x $100 = $10 million for TomTom

    1.4 million x free = $0 for Nokia



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by bstring


    Apple rejected Google Maps with free navigation, true. TomTom earned a healthy profit because they were coddled by Apple, who just wanted to preserve its 30%. This is great news for the developer and Apple, but who is the real loser here? Exactly, all the people who paid for something offered at no charge outside the apple ecosystem. The situation itself boggles my mind, but the twisted reporting of it is just bizarre. Well, unless the developers outnumber the users here.



    Some people round here like to take the point of view that Apple making loads of money means that they still exist to sell good products so it's good for us that Apple make money. I agree with you that the consumer loses out and that the TomTom sales aren't a good example of a success story. They were already popular and have used their brand to rip off 100,000 people by selling their software alone for close to the same price as a standalone GPS unit.



    I'd like to see how much money Doodle Jump has made. That useless app has been at the top of the charts for ages. That must have sold millions of copies.
  • Reply 32 of 50
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Brometheus View Post


    Over a million downloads of a free app is not necessarily all that impressive. You should expect a free app to be downloaded a lot. Over a million copies of an app that costs almost $100 in a week; now that would be really impressive.



    Still, if you use a calculator you'll see that in the last two quarters TomTom made less than 1 % of their overall revenue with their iPhone software (about ?6 million of about ?1 billion for 6 months). To say that this tiny revenue helped them turn a profit is ridicoulus. Even if they fired all their hardware engineers, they would have to grow their iPhone sales thirty- or fiftyfold to run the company only on them.
  • Reply 33 of 50
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Marvin View Post


    I'd like to see how much money Doodle Jump has made. That useless app has been at the top of the charts for ages. That must have sold millions of copies.



    They've sold close to 2 million copies, according to Google. That would be ?1 million in net revenues. It's a game by the way, not a toy app.
  • Reply 34 of 50
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,310moderator
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by reverie View Post


    They've sold close to 2 million copies, according to Google. That would be ?1 million in net revenues. It's a game by the way, not a toy app.



    See now that's a success story. Making a game that basically replicates one of the Super Mario levels and generating over 1/10th the amount of money of one of the biggest GPS companies in the world. Just two guys in the company - Igor and Marko:



    http://www.businessinsider.com/iphon...ley+Insider%29
  • Reply 35 of 50
    i still use google maps.
  • Reply 36 of 50
    benicebenice Posts: 382member
    Guys, I want to get the TomTom app (even though Navigon looks great too) but I want to have it on a new iTunes account. I already have enough credit on my current account though and want to send the credit to a new one I set up. Is it possible to do that, so the credit transfers to the new account?
  • Reply 37 of 50
    pmzpmz Posts: 3,433member
    Having used several navigation options for the iPhone, I still feel the Tom Tom package is over priced for what it offers. The $99 unit is acceptable for all that it offers, but the App itself once $99, now $59 dollars for US, is still nothing but brand cushion.



    In reality, the $30 CoPilot app is just as good. Good enough that I have not seen the need to go with Tom Tom for the carkit. I have my own mount, and sometimes place it elsewhere. There seems to be no need for additional GPS tech from the Tom Tom carkit. CoPilot just works.



    So, $160 or $30 (plus 10-30 for a mounting solution)?



    Same basic experience. At over 100 k downloads, I'd say Tom Tom's brand confidence was well placed.
  • Reply 38 of 50
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by lav1daloca View Post


    100'000 copies? how is this number impressive?

    Nokia's free Ovi Maps was downloaded 1.4 million times in the first week alone. That's impressive. Nokia sells about 100 million smartphones a year: guess what? All of them will come preloaded with free navigation. How is TomTom gonna survive that?



    How does TomTom survive free Maps software built into the iPhone? I wouldn't be surprised if there are paid third party map apps for Nokias too.



    If you want to top charts, free is the way to go. If you're not a hardware maker but still a professional developer, you need something to make that money back somehow. No one can expect the same pull as a free or cheap counterpart, but often there there is a market for something better or different than what is available for cheap or free.
  • Reply 39 of 50
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by cash4chaos View Post


    Don't wast your cash on any expensive gps apps Motion X Drive is .099 cents !! with a yearly voice subscription of 25 $ works better than any high end gps app



    I picked up Motion X Drive this morning.



    Nice looking interface. However, it is not as fast or as accurate as my TomTom/Car Kit. And it sucks up my limited data plan.



    I really feel that the additional GPS chip in the car kit is significant. Autocharging is a must and now that handsfree is the law, the Bluetooth speaker is well worth it. Plus the quality and ease of attaching the dashmount is unsurpassed.



    More important, I can use my TomTom/Car Kit without worrying about roaming when I cross the border, or where 3G service is limited.



    I could get a combination of mount/holder/speaker/charger minus the GPS chip for less mind you, but why mess up my Lexus with all the crappy looking plastic.
  • Reply 40 of 50
    igeniusigenius Posts: 1,240member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Brometheus View Post


    Over a million downloads of a free app is not necessarily all that impressive.



    My guess is that it made a huge impression on every GPS company in the world.



    YMMV
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