TomTom sat-nav iPhone app hits the road

By Flora Graham on 17 August 2009, 11:55am

The golden child of this year's WWDC iPhone love-in has finally been born. TomTom, the sat-nav with the voice of Homer, is now available (iTunes link) from the Apple App store.

The iPhone app is available now, but the in-car mounting kit that goes with it is nowhere to be seen. TomTom told us it wanted to push the app out the door, since it was ready, but the in-car kit still needs more tweaking.

The in-car kit will include another GPS antenna, which will boost the iPhone's GPS sensitivity, as well as a charging dock and a cable to connect your phone to your car's music system. But all this is optional, and TomTom promises the app will work well even without the help of the in-car kit.

No doubt TomTom decided to push the button on its app, despite the missing hardware, after it was beaten to the App Store by Navigon and Sygic, which launched back in June.

CoPilot also released its sat-nav app into the App Store (iTunes link) last week. It includes live weather reports and a social-networking feature so you can keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

The TomTom app says it will get you there faster based on historical speed measurements -- data on how fast previous drivers were going on each stretch of road. It calls this feature IQ Routes.

The TomTom app is the priciest of the current pack, at £60 for the UK and Ireland version. CoPilot Live will set you back £26 for the UK version and Navigon MobileNavigator will put a £53-sized hole in your pocket.

We'll be doing a test run on all the iPhone sat-navs soon, especially if we can convince Rory to lend us his latest Jag.