GPS on Cell Phones
The amount of services offering GPS navigation services on cell phones seems to be increasing every day. This seems to address a recent survey by Ipsos Insight that revealed 86% of 171 surveyed mobile users considered having GPS technology on mobile phones “very important” or “nice to have”. Email. text messages, and camera features were still ahead of GPS features.
“The emergence of GPS as a benefit of next- generation mobile devices has been largely overlooked as marketers have been focusing on entertainment-based services. Looking at the previous success of functional capabilities like email and Internet access on mobile devices, GPS is an obvious choice.” - Todd Board, Senior Vice President of the Ipsos Insight Technology & Communications practice
I believe that cell phones and mobile phones will always be a second class citizen when it comes to GPS navigation. The small screen size will never lend itself to be a top GPS navigator. However with some GPS software capable of running on mobile phones costing as little as a one time $39 purchase, it can be drastically more economical than spending over a thousand for all of the bells and whistles on the most expensive GPS navigation systems.
