While they admit it's purely a rumor from an unproven source, the iPhone blog is reporting that they have a source that is claiming that in time for Christmas we may be seeing turn-by-turn GPS-guided directions in an iPhone firmware update. According to their source:
"Apple has begun quietly demonstrating an internally developed iPhone GPS Navigator program that includes turn-by-turn, 3d views etc. Visually, it is very similar to Tom-Tom, but with the expected Apple eye candy. They were sketchy about the details, but it seem that this will not be part of the core software (I.E. they intend to charge for it). It was also unclear whether they were using cellular-based data to share traffic information, but some of the screens seemed to indicate that it would."iPhone and Apple rumors are a dime-a-dozen these days, so while exciting it is probably not true. Such a rumor wouldn't be unfounded though, as just in June, Tom Tom, the maker of GPS devices and software, announced they were close to producing an iPhone app of their own. Why we haven't seen that yet, it's hard to tell, but my guess would be something related to the iPhone NDA for pre-released Apps. I imagine they are dealing with the approval process right now. From companies I have consulted in the past, the problem of knowing if your app will or won't get approved has been an ongoing issue.
Could the Tom Tom app not be out yet because it is indeed competition with what Apple is about to release? Competition is good, so let's hope we see something like this soon, regardless who makes it.
Read more by Jesse Stay at Stay N' Alive.