Corporate Blog

As Apple continues to make changes to the App Store’s pricing system, we follow suit in our effort to give you Gokivo at the best price.

Today, we’re offering a new pricing option that allows you to download Gokivo for just $0.99, and then if you like it – and we think you will! – you can continue to use Gokivo without any commitment for $4.99 per month.

For those of us that have become dependent on Gokivo’s ability to effortlessly get us from Point A to Point B and keep us out of traffic jams, the app will still be available with a yearly pricing option of $39.99.

If you still haven’t given Gokivo a try, now’s your chance. With pricing like this, why wouldn’t you? You can find more information about Gokivo at http://www.gokivo.com. We’re also happy to answer any questions you might have. You can find us at info@networksinmotion.com.

You may have noticed that Apple has recently made it possible to develop apps that are free to download, yet still take advantage of the new in-app commerce system. We certainly did.

When we first released Gokivo, our original idea was to make it a free app, and then let people choose how many days of navigation they wanted to purchase once they were inside the app. This would provide a flexible pricing option, which would not force users to make a decision before they even downloaded the app.

Unfortunately, due to Apple’s policy, we were not able to do this. As a result, our first day in the App Store did not go as smoothly as we would have liked, and we had to change around our pricing.

Now that we have the opportunity though, we are reevaluating our pricing options. We understand the potential benefits that can come from having an app that is free to download, and we would love to give people the option to download the app and take advantage of our search functions for free, even if they didn’t want to pay for navigation.

At this point, we are going to weigh our options, but we would love to hear what you have to say. Send us your thoughts at info@networksinmotion.com, and let us know.

We’re very proud today to introduce the all new Gokivo GPS Navigator in the Apple app store. Just as we were the first company to offer you a turn-by-turn navigation solution for the iPhone, we are the first to offer an upgraded version with major enhancements.

The New York Times has already checked it out (review here: http://bit.ly/16g6tE) and said it was a “notable improvement,” and worked faster than the competition to locate and calculate directions. As you can imagine, we are excited by this validation, but this review is just the start. What’s even more important than getting great press is wowing our users with a great product.

Shortly after the app was introduced, our engineers discovered that the iPhone firmware contained idiosyncrasies that didn’t allow for optimal GPS performance. This realization, along with our invaluable feedback, gave us a mission to fix GPS performance on the iPhone, as well as making the interface more intuitive. In coordination with Apple, we set out to optimize the configuration to better sync the performance of complicated turn-by-turn navigation and made dozens of changes and enhancements. And that took us to one final (and lengthy) step. Test it, retest it, and then test it again for good measure. We wanted to be sure that we were delivering a product that would produce the kind of results you asked for.

Some of the areas that we were able to upgrade include:

• Improved GPS position tracking for precision accuracy on the road
• Enhanced search interface
• Improved navigation functionality for a more robust experience
• Audio clarity with enhanced voice-prompt sound volumes
• Improved performance and memory management

On top of these upgrades, we’ve introduced what we think is the most consumer-friendly pricing model of any turn-by-turn navigation app for the iPhone, with no heavy upfront fees or automatic subscription renewals. A 30-day pass for the app is just $9.99 and does not automatically renew.

On the iPhone App Store, developers are constantly improving their products. We didn’t hustle to become the first turn-by turn app for the iPhone just for the distinction of being first—although we are proud of that—we hustled so that we could get to work on building the next generation of our app, and that will continue as we build future generations.

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!