HTC and TomTom Team Up For Navigation

HTC has been talking about its HTC Locations for some time now, and it looks like it has chosen a partner to make it happen and that partner is TomTom. The partnership is touting a “zero-wait” navigation experience and it will only be available initially on the HTC Desire D and Z models in Europe and Asia. And you have to purchase turn-by-turn separately. So that sounds like a trial marriage to me.

The HTC Locations moniker also raises some interesting issues. We’ve come to associate Location as some form of search, and that association will only increase. Searching and finding something and then seeing it on a map that can then help you navigate is becoming the norm. Google Maps on many platforms makes this tie work really well. Apple is working on its own maps, Bing is pushing that envelope as well. So, in my thinking in order for this to be a big time move, the hook between search and the navigation software would have to be pretty seamless. Otherwise it just serves well as a GPS App. That said, TomTom’s new update for the iPhone App supposedly lets you navigate to a location by using a picture tagged with Geo Location info. So, I’m guessing this is going to be something interesting to watch.

Press release follows:

AMSTERDAM & TAOYUAN, Taiwan–(BUSINESS WIRE)–TomTom, the world’s leading provider of location and navigation solutions, and HTC Corporation, a global designer of smartphones, today announced they are combining strengths to deliver superb navigation and location solutions on HTC smartphones.

“This partnership with TomTom underlines HTC’s commitment to giving our customers an innovative navigation experience that is natural and provides unique enhancements for common navigation needs”

HTC Locations, HTC’s new mapping experience, comes preloaded with TomTom’s location-rich maps, resulting in a zero-wait navigation experience. HTC Locations is initially available on the new HTC Desire HD and HTC Desire Z smartphones in Europe and Asia and will be extended to a wide variety of future smartphones and geographies.

“I am very pleased to be providing HTC customers with TomTom’s accurate location and navigation content on their phones wherever they are. The beauty of it is that the maps are preloaded and instantly available at users’ fingertips. For the first time, this makes the power of TomTom navigation content available ‘in-pocket’ for HTC smartphone users”, says Maarten van Gool, Managing Director of TomTom Licensing.

“This partnership with TomTom underlines HTC’s commitment to giving our customers an innovative navigation experience that is natural and provides unique enhancements for common navigation needs,” said John Wang, Chief Marketing Officer, HTC Corporation. “HTC and TomTom have worked closely to optimize these amazing capabilities on HTC smartphones through our new HTC Locations application.”

Maps and location content come preloaded on HTC Locations while turn-by-turn navigation can be purchased and downloaded through HTC Locations or HTC Sync.

Via Engadget