http://www.google.com/landing/music/

Not as revolutionary as I thought it was going to be, but awesome nonetheless.

Also, big fan to hear the new Android phone is going to have turn-by-turn direction using google maps. How long before they are pumping out GPS units, 2010?

10/28/2009 11:00:42 PM

Google will not "pump out GPS units". There are two things that will happen:

1) TomTom and Garmin (or their navigation unit) will die long, slow deaths, unless they can innovate fast and figure out a way they can compete with free

2) Google will port Maps Navigation to iPhone, and will of course push it onto all Android devices. Google will not create stand-alone GPS units, but they may partner with other companies to do so, or other companies may simply build non-phone GPS devices that run Android, much like the Barnes & Noble Nook is an eReader that runs Android

10/28/2009 11:09:51 PM

there's multiple threads for this.

10/28/2009 11:13:11 PM

Quote :

"1) TomTom and Garmin (or their navigation unit) will die long, slow deaths, unless they can innovate fast and figure out a way they can compete with free"

Google isn't competing with either of them. Until you get offline capability, standalone GPS devices (as well as software offerings) aren't going anywhere. And Google can't get offline maps, because they can't give them away for free.

10/28/2009 11:15:49 PM

Garmin has a $99 lifetime updates pass.

Of course it is contingent on their partnership with NAVTEQ working out forever.

10/28/2009 11:16:08 PM

^^ I realize that there will always be demand for an offline maps-storage capability, but seriously - you don't think that with 3G/4G/WiMax/whatever's next, the mapping needs of a large amount of users couldn't be handled via the network?

And what do you mean Google can't give maps away for free - you mean because economically they can't do it (sure they can), or because of some licensing restrictions with who they buy their maps from or something? Maybe you won't be able to download entire country's worth of maps, but I would not be surprised at all to see some kind of offline capability coming, via a Google Gears mechanism. At least for downloading and storing, temporarily, map areas or routes. I wouldn't be surprised that with the upcoming turn-by-turn directions, some or all of the route maps/satellite/streetview is prefetched and cached for responsiveness or for loss of signal.

10/28/2009 11:58:59 PM

Noen, why do you think Google can't make stand-along GPS units? They have google maps, of course they can load that in a pretty box with a small HD and sell it. What am I missing in your opinion?

Prospero, there are multiple threads for every topic. STFU.

10/29/2009 1:03:40 AM

Dudes got a point. The google innovation thread whole have been ideal. Thus locking this one

10/29/2009 1:15:21 AM

Quote :

"because of some licensing restrictions with who they buy their maps from or something? Maybe you won't be able to download entire country's worth of maps, but I would not be surprised at all to see some kind of offline capability coming, via a Google Gears mechanism. At least for downloading and storing, temporarily, map areas or routes. I wouldn't be surprised that with the upcoming turn-by-turn directions, some or all of the route maps/satellite/streetview is prefetched and cached for responsiveness or for loss of signal."

They can't do it. they are only licensed to display on-demand mapping data. they don't have the licensing rights to allow users to store that data in any offline mode. even caching it for session data (spotty coverage areas, etc) is a very gray area.

It's not at all a technical limitation, it's a business limitation. And with the announcements they've made now, I can all but guarantee you no one is going to grant them that license now. Unless they buy a major sat imagery provider, I don't see this ever happening.

10/29/2009 5:21:36 AM

Quote :

"I can all but guarantee you no one is going to grant them that license now."

why not. just change the license, pay more money

Quote :

"Unless they buy a major sat imagery provider"

well if anyone could/would it that, it's google

10/29/2009 9:49:16 AM

Quote :

"^^ I realize that there will always be demand for an offline maps-storage capability, but seriously - you don't think that with 3G/4G/WiMax/whatever's next, the mapping needs of a large amount of users couldn't be handled via the network?"

Go somewhere with no or even intermittant coverage then tell me how well Google Maps works.

One of my favorite iPhone features is that when I'm driving along and my "GPS" shows where I am on a nice little grid with no map.

10/29/2009 10:07:42 AM

^

Quote :

"the mapping needs of a large amount of users"

not "all users" and not "all the time"

10/29/2009 10:14:52 AM

The people who would use the phone as their GPS are the ones who would need it all the time.

The whole point of a GPS device is supposed to be that as long as I'm not in a tunnel or inside a mountain, it's capable of telling me where I am and where I need to go. It's something that reliance on a network connection shouldn't factor into.

10/29/2009 11:01:07 AM

Quote :

"The people who would use the phone as their GPS are the ones who would need it all the time."

Wouldn't the exact opposite be true? If you use GPS all the time, you'd be better off getting a mid-range/high end standalone device. But something that would be used very sporadically, would be a great secondary purpose for your phone. At least that's the way I've seen my usage work.

10/29/2009 4:58:50 PM

Quote :

"The people who would use the phone as their GPS are the ones who would need it all the time."

This is the exact opposite of my thought on that. I use my phone for GPS.... MAYBE once every 1-2 months.

10/29/2009 5:00:59 PM

i use VZ Nav everyday for business and update it daily and i cannot wait to get a droid and drop it

10/29/2009 5:20:32 PM

Quote :

"Wouldn't the exact opposite be true? If you use GPS all the time, you'd be better off getting a mid-range/high end standalone device. But something that would be used very sporadically, would be a great secondary purpose for your phone. At least that's the way I've seen my usage work."

exactly. i don't want to have my phone sucked up to the windshield providing nav in the car, unless it's a rare case in someone elses car or something. i need to...um...talk on it, and look shit up on the internet.

i dont see standalones going anywhere anytime soon. they're way too cheap, and they work too damn well. it's like saying dvrs are going away since you can do it on your computer. or ipods are going away cause you can do that on your phone. theres something to be said for single purpose devices, depending on your needs.

look we are early adopters. we are not the general buying public. i think we can too easily get caught up in the coolness of something and overestimate how cool the general buying public think it is too...which isn't even the right question since they don't make most their buying decisions based on whats cool. i know a shit ton of people who dont have advanced phones, don't want advanced phones, but they love their garmins. hell even if they had some new fangled phone they wouldn't know how to use the gps on it anyway. everybody != you.

OMG GOOGLES INVOLVED SO THE SHITS OVER OMG.!!!

10/29/2009 5:39:07 PM

You know, I was typing up a response and realized that I wasn't really sure what I was arguing. The whole point of my post was to say that I don't think streaming maps will meet the needs of a large amount of people at any point in the near future.

Somehow I got away from actually saying that though and I'm certain my opinion has been skewed by constantly being fucked over by the iPhone GPS after buying it with the thought that it would replace my need for a standalone unit.

10/29/2009 5:50:09 PM

Quote :

"why not. just change the license, pay more money "

That's the point. Google already could do that, paying just like every other GPS manufacturer does. But if they did, they couldn't offer the service for free. Plain and simple.

Quote :

"well if anyone could/would it that, it's google"

Google doesn't currently have the capital to acquire a provider, and the players in that industry are all already well established, profitable and mature (in other words, they have no reason to sell or merge). It would be a major net LOSS for the sat providers to change their licensing terms for google, and being acquired by google would remove the revenue model, which would have to be come up with some other way (either Google taking massive losses, or passing the cost on to the end user)

10/29/2009 7:44:06 PM

Quote :

"But if they did, they couldn't offer the service for free. Plain and simple. "

alright, if you say so.

but your track record on what Google can and can't afford to give away for free isn't exactly flawless

agentlion:

Quote :

"3/14/2006 5:34:43 PM They can make a dumbed down version [of Sketchup] for everyone else where we can make simple models, maybe try to model or house, or make models to build a new dog house or something. Then they can sell the pro version like they do now with all the bells and whistles for $300 or $400 or whatever. However they do it, they will sell a hell of a lot more copies than @Last probably does now. "

noen:

Quote :

"3/14/2006 6:15:09 PM not going to happen. SketchUp isn't a "tiered" application. You either have it or not. It would be completely stupid to create multiple versions of it, because it's already such a highly integrated piece of software ... Making the program free would eliminate the only source of revenue for @Last."

http://thewolfweb.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=394039


now?

10/29/2009 11:38:52 PM

^you got me on that one (although @Last did offer a free trial). I was pretty suprised that Google actually monetized it like that.

But maps are an entirely different matter.

Currently Google pays NAVTEQ/TeleAtlas for every single route query issued. They also pay for geocoding queries. They also essentially lease access to the satellite and location data.

@Last had something like 4-8 million a year in revenue. NAVTEQ has something like 250 million a year in revenue and has 4,000 employees.

But more importantly, if they buy NAVTEQ, they have to figure out a way to recoupe the 180 million a year in operating costs. They did it with SketchUp by continuing to charge for it. Maybe they could continue to charge for NAVTEQ, but they would be selling to their own competition.

Look at what happened with 3Dfx buying STB in trying to control the entire distribution system, and how it was a primary cause of their failure. A content delivery company buying a data provider in a heavily competitive market is a very tricky situation.

Who knows though, Google seems to have a knack for making the impossible deals happen, and people continue to buy into the hype hook line and sinker

10/30/2009 1:15:56 AM

$180M/year?
psshhh.... that's nothin' for a company with almost $30 Billion cash in the bank.

now, I didn't know that G pays for each route they serve, or how restrictive the licensing currently deals are. But, I'm just hoping that in another year Google will surprise us all, especially you, and will change the way we look at GPS and maps, again.

10/30/2009 1:27:37 AM

So I just checked. Ain't no way Google is buying either of them.

Nokia owns NAVTEQ, and TomTom owns TeleAtlas. Very interesting

10/30/2009 1:33:29 AM