GPS manufacturer TomTom has released its iPhone GPS app for Australia. The app, TomTom Australia, is available for $99.99 from the App Store and is compatible with the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS.
TomTom Australia is the third iPhone app to offer a full GPS navigation experience, competing with the $79.99 Sygic Mobile Maps 2009 and the $69.99 MobileNavigator Australian iPhone app from Navigon.
Though TomTom provides its own GPS hardware and offers its maps on other mobile platforms, the app is the first TomTom product for the iPhone. Its release comes two months after it was announced by TomTom CTO Peter-Frans Pauwels at Apple's Worldwide Developer's Conference (WWDC) in June.
The app takes advantage of the iPhone's capabilities, offering a tailored user interface, multi-touch gestures and employing the smartphone's internal GPS receiver. Users will be able to navigate to addresses in the iPhone's contacts list and search for points of interest. Other capabilities include automatic rerouting, route demos, a 3D map view and support for up to 18 languages.
TomTom also offers iPhone apps that cover New Zealand, Western Europe and the United States. All three apps are available for purchase in the Australian App Store for $114.99, $169.99 and $119.99, respectively.
“With TomTom for iPhone, millions of iPhone users can now benefit from the same easy-to-use and intuitive interface, turn-by-turn spoken navigation and unique routing technology that our 30 million portable navigation device users rely on every day,” said TomTom's managing director, Corinne Vigreux.
The $99.99 price tag does not cover the optional car kit which was announced along with the iPhone app at WWDC. The car kit, available later this year for an undisclosed sum, will provide a mount for the iPhone as well as improved GPS and turn-by-turn capabilities.
TomTom stated in a press release today that it planned to support the iPod Touch and other iPhone models at a later date.
