Corporate Blog

When taking a long road trip, having a GPS system is incredibly useful. You will usually be driving through unfamiliar territory, and trying to navigate the old fashioned way will only lead to frustration and a car filled with maps that refuse to fold back up.

While we can’t get you out of speeding tickets or make the trip go faster (well, unless there’s traffic, but we’ll have more on that later), we can give you our top 5 GPS tips for road trips.

1. Don’t always settle for fast food. While fast food meals can get you in and out quickly, sitting down for a meal can be just the break you need to recharge for the second half of the day. NIM navigation apps can let you search for whatever kind of food your mood may call for, so if you happen to feel like sushi for lunch, with mobile navigation, that is an option (unless you are in the Midwest—then sushi may be out of the way).

2. Prepare yourself for traffic. NIM navigation products can alert you when traffic is coming, and oftentimes give you an alternate route to take to avoid it. While there are still some times when it is impossible to avoid the traffic, we have found that if you know it is coming ahead of time, you can prepare yourself and adjust your mindset accordingly. Every little thing helps.

3. Never worry about gas (except for high prices). Many people who have been on road trips have at one point had the scary feeling that can creep up on us when we’re not paying attention—“I may run out of gas.” With mobile navigation devices, you can search the nearest gas stations, and never have to worry about running out.

4. Bring a car charger. There is really no other way to say this–running out of batteries is the worst. If your phone runs out of juice, not only will you not have access to the navigation, but you are also stuck without the other features of your phone, such as playing MP3s.

5. Don’t be afraid to take the scenic route. With the slightest bit of planning, NIM’s navigation products will enable you to get off the main road and take an alternate scenic route. On a long road trip, you never know when you’ll have a chance to detour through a beautiful national park. A road trip is a chance to see the country at its best, and a navigation device can help make sure you do.

Standalone navigation devices have ruled the GPS world since besting in-car systems in a knock-down drag-out brawl in the early 2000s.  These days, though, there’s a new contender on the scene—mobile-phone based navigation apps.

We envision a pay-per-view worthy slugfest, where the action will be fast and furious. To get you ready for the action, we want to present the tale of the tape. Like any smart fight fan, you can use this to get familiar with the contenders, and have the information you will need to predict a winner.

Portability

Today’s standalone GPS units don’t fit in a pocket. While they can be used in more than one car (perhaps the decisive factor in their win over in-car systems) they often need to be plugged in to operate, ruling them out for users who want to walk or bike to their destination.

Mobile navigation applications, however, can go wherever a cell phone can.  That means that users can get walking directions, and pull out their navigation device in situations where it may be awkward to pull out a large standalone unit.

The increased portability is a clear edge for mobile navigation.

Battery

Since standalone GPS devices are designed to be plugged into a car when in use, battery life is rarely a problem.

Mobile navigation solutions, on the other hand, often compete for precious battery life with email, games, and even the occasional phone call. Plug –in chargers work on car trips, but not bike rides or walks.

As people turn to their phones to perform more and more functions, low battery life can be a problem. With standalone GPS systems, this is not an issue, and that gives them the edge in this category.
 
GPS Accuracy

Standalone GPS units come from the factory with pre-loaded maps.  This works great at first, but can mean that the devices give lousy directions once the maps are out of date.

Mobile navigation devices are always attached to the network, which means users will always have up to date info, and never have to worry about being directed into a dead end.

Out of date standalone units do not misfire often, but when they do it can cause huge problems. The edge in this category has to go to mobile.

Price

Portable GPS devices cost an upfront fee that can range anywhere from $150 to over $500. Most mobile navigation apps charge a per month fee of $10. People usually keep their cell phones for around 2-3 years, so if someone was paying $10 a month for navigation the entire time they had their phone, the price would fall somewhere in the middle of the standalone devices.

Both pricing models have their merits, and it is hard to give either competitor the edge in this category.

Extra Features

Standalone navigation devices have traditionally offered few special features. Recently though, standalone GPS manufacturers have started offering features like traffic updates, weather information, and the ability to play music through the car radio. A lot of these features are only available in the higher end devices however.

Mobile navigation fully capitalizes on the functionality of the current smartphones, and this is seen in the extra features. Mobile navigation can snyc with your address book to give you quick directions to any contact who you may be meeting up with, and by tapping into the mobile web, mobile navigation users have access to incredible search features that let them search and read about businesses and events that they may want to use their device to navigate to.

While the basic navigational capabilities are comparable between a standalone GPS unit and a mobile GPS unit, the extra features available on mobile apps give it a clear edge over standalone systems. .

Fight Prediction

While standalone GPS systems will put up a fight (as the defending champs always seem to do), we see mobile navigation using the extra features available to land that knockout blow and come out on top.

Gokivo for BlackBerry is now available in the UK, Western Europe, and Canada.

As people continue to read about Gokivo and talk with friends and family who are using it, we have seen (much to our delight!) that interest in Gokivo is spreading globally. As such, we made it a goal of ours to try and give everyone who wants to try the product an opportunity to use it.

Expanding Gokivo’s global reach will give countless new people the opportunity to try Gokivo, and this current deal is only the beginning of an expanded global presence that we envision for NIM.

We are currently offering a free 30 day trial period of Gokivo for BlackBerry. If you (or someone you know) may be curious about the product but doesn’t want to commit, you can now give Gokivo a try without being forced to pay upfront.

Gokivo is currently available on the BlackBerry Bold, and the Curve 8900 series.

If you have any questions about Gokivo’s availability in your country – shoot us an email at info@networksinmotion.com.

When we built Gokivo for the iPhone, we knew it would need great features to stand out in the crowded App Store. We think our traffic function is a huge part of what separates us from the competition, and we strive to give people an edge up on traffic that will make them always feel like they are in the carpool lane.

Here at NIM, we understand that getting stuck in traffic is no fun (and being out in Southern California, believe us – we understand), so we built Gokivo to help you avoid gridlock whenever possible. Gokivo calculates the best route to take based on the traffic conditions (avoidance is always the best option), and if you are forced to take a route that has congested traffic, Gokivo will monitor it in real-time so that you don’t have to wonder how long it’s going to take to get moving again.

To further help you in the fight against traffic, Gokivo also keeps track of past driving experiences (good and bad), and will tell you historical traffic information. Next time you are driving with your friend and they say, “Don’t go this way, the traffic is always terrible” feel free to prove them wrong.

Gokivo gives you the tools you need to attack traffic by combining the convenience of a portable GPS system with top of the line traffic information. You will be able to see the traffic coming, and if need be, take the steps to avoid it.

Here’s to traffic free drives for everyone.

For all of you T-Mobile subscribers who are looking for a navigation solution, we are happy to announce that T-Mobile has joined Verizon, Sprint, and AT&T as a provider of AAA Mobile Navigator.

AAA Mobile Nav, is a NIM-built voice guided turn by turn navigation app that offers some of the great benefits that travelers have counted on AAA to deliver for years.

One of the coolest features of the app allows users to send their GPS location right from their phone to the AAA roadside assistance call center for service. Instead of being forced to give directions to where you are (and doesn’t it always seem like whenever your car breaks down you have no idea where you are), the GPS will give the call center your longitude and latitude, and you can kick back and wait for help to arrive.

This great feature isn’t just for current AAA members, the app will also help non-members sign up on the spot, so you’ll never have to sit stuck by the side of the road wishing you’d had the foresight to sign up for AAA.

AAA Mobile Navigator has other exclusive features that take advantage of the AAA partnership, and of course, the same top of the line navigation tools you can expect from all NIM products. AAA Mobile Navigator gives users:

* Information on nearby businesses where AAA members can save by presenting their cards
* The ability to search for nearby AAA approved places to eat, stay, and play – including full descriptions and reviews
* Automatic rerouting if you miss a turn
* Information on traffic flow and accidents

If you are a T-Mobile user and you want to give it a try, AAA Mobile Navigator is currently available on the Samsung Behold, and the Blackberry 8800, 8830, and 8900. If you want to send us feedback, feel free to post something in the comments section below, or drop us a line at info@networksinmotion.com.

We were proud to be the first voice guided turn-by-turn app on the iPhone, but we never expected we’d be the only nav app there. Today, our friends at AT&T joined us on the iPhone platform, making a turn-by-turn app available for $9.99 a month. Charges go on your AT&T mobile bill.

A couple of observations about the different approaches to similar applications:

· Gokivo integrated with iTunes: We chose to integrate our navigation with popular apps on the iPhone. So you can play music from iTunes and still get voice-guided navigation that you can hear. Gokivo automatically mutes music to make the navigation announcement and then returns to your music.

· Gokivo lets you navigate to addresses in Contacts: Gokivo can easily navigate to addresses in your contacts on the iPhone. AT&T Navigator does not currently allow an easy way to click on contacts and get immediate directions.

· With Gokivo, just shake to recalc your route! As we mentioned earlier, we built Gokivo to maximize its integration with other features of the iPhone. So if you need to recalc your route to avoid traffic or get back on course, just give the iPhone a shake. No button pushing required.

· Gokivo local search, ratings and content from Yahoo! We know any app is only as good as the content you find there. That’s why we partnered with Yahoo so that our users would get the latest in information and the widest possible assortment of opinions and reviews when looking for food, fun and entertainment, much more than just business listings. AT&T is using ratings and information from www.yellowpages.com and you may find that some categories have no ratings at all.

· No auto billing for Gokivo and cancel sub easily: There is no “free” version of AT&T Navigator. Users must download the app and then enter their phone number so the subscription can be billed on the AT&T mobile bill. But be careful, there’s also no way to cancel your AT&T subscription from the app. You’ll have to call or email AT&T to stop billing, even if you’ve deleted the app from your phone. Users will get a chance every month to use In App purchasing to get another 30 days of navigation with gokivo. Gokivo and the apple iTunes App Store neither allow auto-renewals nor free apps that charge a subscription.

Anyway, we salute our colleagues at AT&T and welcome them to the Apple store. Consumers always win when there’s healthy competition. Stay tuned to the App store for more nav apps. We certainly will be watching!

As a follow up to our last post, we want to go into a little more detail about what exactly you get when you download the $0.99 cent app, and what you get with the monthly subscription.

Basic download of the Gokivo app

Our partnership with Yahoo! is one of the most exciting aspects of the new app, and everyone that pays to download the app will get to take full advantage. When you want to perform a search, Gokivo uses the iPhone GPS to pinpoint where you are, and then uses your location to tap into the Yahoo! search database and find search results close to you.

Some examples of search categories include: restaurants, movie theaters, hotels, gas stations and ATMs. Whatever it is that you choose to search for, Gokivo will pull up a map and then show all the nearest applicable results. The partnership with Yahoo! also means that Gokivo users have access to Yahoo! Local’s ratings and reviews, so you will be able to quickly monitor the quality of your search results as well.

As far as navigating to these places goes, the basic $0.99 cent download will give you written directions to wherever you want to go, but not voice guided directions.

Monthly subscription to Gokivo

The monthly subscription costs $9.99/month and includes every feature in the app. When you select a place you want to go, instead of getting a list of directions to take, you will get voice-prompted directions that use GPS to follow you while you go and make sure you get to your destination.

While we understand that consistent, accurate navigation is the most important part of our app, we also wanted to make sure that people got more than that. Here are some of the other functions we have included in the subscription model of Gokivo

· Real-time traffic alerts warn you about delays along your route and allow you to easily detour around traffic as needed – simply give the iPhone a shake and you will be prompted to take a detour

· Have an at a glance view of estimated arrival times, and the distance between you and your destination

· Enjoy your music library while navigating! Listen to your tunes, and then when a voice needs to direct you where to go, the music will fade

· Integrate your contacts to navigate to a business or friend’s house

As a whole, we think that both options can provide value depending on what someone may want. If you are someone who decides that voice prompted turn by turn navigation is what you are interested in, we feel confident that our app will provide everything you are looking for.

If you are someone who just wants to be able to tap into Yahoo! to search locally and always be informed of what is around you, then it sounds like just downloading the app and not paying for the subscription is for you.

We expect different users to select different options, and hopefully, you will select whatever is right for yourself.

It was really great to get Gokivo launched yesterday in the app store. But the launch was admittedly not perfect.

We want to clarify how our pricing for the app works… Users pay 99 cents to get access to the maps and all of the local information provided by our partner Yahoo! Local, as well as one-click access to the great discovery features in the app. Looking for a place to eat nearby? Just click “restaurants” in the category section and users instantly see what’s around them. Need a tank of gas quickly? Just click “gasoline” and instantly see what’s nearby. That is what you get for 99 cents.

If you want voice guided turn-by-turn navigation to one of these destinations, there’s a different price. For $9.99 a month users get immediate access to the first and only turn-by-turn, voice guided app currently on the iPhone. Delivering an in-dash quality navigation experience isn’t easy and it isn’t cheap - it takes a lot of work and money to deliver all these features and functionality that’s included in a turn-by-turn navigation app; and unlike product with maps on the device, we are updating maps and search indexes constantly. subscription based navigation apps have been generally priced at $9.99 “in the market”…..and Apple now has options in line with that. If you want free step by step directions, just touch the blue right arrow for more detail, scroll down to “Walking Directions”.

Some users also felt that the initial description of the app did not make clear that turn-by-turn navigation was only available to users who chose to subscribe. We quickly updated our description in the app store to make it much clearer about the pricing for the navigation.

But wait there’s more in the misstep department. Due to an error in the build that was initially posted in the iPhone app store some users were told they would have to pay 99 cents a minute for turn-by-turn navigation. Yikes!! Clearly a mistake on our part and one we quickly corrected as soon as we noticed, the update should be up in the store shortly. These (1 minute and 10 minute) were part of the QA test build and were there to test the new in app billing with out having to wait 30 days to resubscribe.

What can we do now? Certainly we apologize to anyone who felt our description of the app could have been clearer. We agree and we’ve changed that. To those who saw the incorrect “per minute” pricing, we apologize for that bonehead mistake and hope it won’t discourage you from trying this great application with some really awesome features that have never been available on the iPhone.

So it’s onward and upward from here. Stay tuned for new features and capabilities in Gokivo.

Since the day Apple said they were opening up their apps to navigation developers, we’ve been on the move. We’ve long thought Gokivo, our consumer brand, was prime for iPhone development, so we hit the ground running. Ok, we sprinted. So fast that we’re one of the first navigation apps in the app store for 3.0, which went live today.

While we (clearly) love navigation and knew it would be great on the iPhone, we wanted to go a step further. So, we struck a deal with Yahoo! Local to provide Gokivo users with comprehensive and robust local search and content within the app. More specifically, the app helps people easily get where they want to go with voice prompted navigation, as well as get access to Yahoo! local data, including contact information and ratings and reviews.

As you’ll see when you check out the product, we really took advantage of all the new software functionality (literally EVERY single one of the new features of the software) in an effort to make Gokivo look like a native iPhone app, and offer as much functionality within the product as possible.

Below are a few of the cool new features we listed in our press release today:

• Robust hyper-local search and discovery powered by Yahoo! Local. One-click searches for bars, restaurants, gas stations, ATMs and many more local points of interest

• Access to the most robust real-time traffic notification on mobile devices, giving users plenty of advance notice to avoid traffic snarls and road work slow downs

• Syncing with Bluetooth in the car or via headset, providing output for music and turn-by-turn navigation audio prompts

• An embedded iPod control, which allows you to listen to music while you are navigating with Gokivo – the music automatically fades (or pauses, if changed in settings) for voice prompts

• The ability to simply “shake” the iPhone to immediately receive alternate route suggestions when encountering things such as traffic congestion

• Find address information directly from any contact in the iPhone and get immediate one-click navigation to the specific address

As any company would be on the day of their launch, we were excited to see the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and BusinessWeek mentions of our product in their stories. Would love to hear what you think as well.

It’s .99 cents to download the app and the full navigation functionality is available for $9.99/month subscription.

- Wall Street Journal - http://bit.ly/cAkQq
- New York Times - http://bit.ly/nbJS
- BusinessWeek - http://bit.ly/13foiv

Almost 2 months ago, we launched Gokivo in the Blackberry App World. Since then, we’ve enjoyed seeing the (excuse the boasting for a moment) feedback and high marks we’ve received - 52 reviews and counting, with an average rating of 4 out of 5!

It’s exactly this type of feedback and reinforcement that motivates us come to work each day. With that said, we are interested in all feedback, not just the positive bits. We’re trying our best to make Gokivo as great as it can be – and with your help and feedback, we’ll
get it there.

If you have any opinions or suggestions you want to share with us, shoot us an email at contactus@gokivo.com, or review in the Blackberry App Store. We’re listening.