“HTML5 might be the future of web apps, but the new mobile standard hasn’t gotten much play in the car,” Damon Lavrinc reports for Wired. “TeleNav’s Scout division aims to change that with a new navigation system that offers voice-prompted, turn-by-turn directions through your mobile browser. And even better, it’s free.”
“Scout is launching the new service today and allows developers an easy way of incorporating navigation functionality directly into existing webpages,” Lavrinc reports. “With a single line of code, a site can provide a clickable link that automatically launches the HTML5-based mapping system, just like you would get in a full-featured standalone navigation app.”
Lavrinc reports, “Developers can use the service free of charge thanks to TeleNav’s mobile advertising scheme or can license the software for an ad-free experience. The rest of us can take the new navigation system a spin through Scout.me’s site.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We just tried it on a new iPad Wi-Fi + 4G (it’s currently an iPhone-formatted app, so we had to 2x it on iPad, but it looked okay). It worked, but there are no voice prompts, so no turn-by-turn guidance. So, for now, at least, it’s all visual. Free for iPhone, iPod touch, (or 2x on iPad) – more info and download link via Apple’s iTunes App Store: Scout by TeleNav.
We’re not tossing our Magellan RoadMate app just yet.
Related articles:
New Magellan RoadMate App for iPhone features free lifetime map, lifetime traffic updates, and more – June 8, 2011
Major iPhone GPS app smackdown! – January 14, 2011
Garmin releases ‘StreetPilot’ turn-by-turn navigation app designed specifically for Apple iPhone– January 4, 2011
With my 200MB iPhone plan I will be using Navigon, thank you very much. With HTML5 based maps, I am sure I would easily surpass 200MB in a month.
I prefer Waze- it’s also free and works with user input- so it’s always up to date. Try it, you’ll like it!
i second that. Waze is good
Thanks for the heads up on Waze. I downloaded it on my lunch break to try it out and it seems pretty good!
Articles like these is why I wish that MDN would stick to posting articles that actually are worth reading instead of any piece of junk that has anything Apple related in it.
1) no, this will no replace your navigation app because navigation apps don’t require constant web access and use up no bandwith unless you search or something on the web through them.
2) having everything on the web, even I free, is not currently an option due to large amount of data that would be used constantly, and the ridiculously small and expensive caps implemented by the telcos
3) even if there were no caps, goo luck using this app when you’re out of reach of a cell tower in the middle of nowhere
For the love of all that’s holy, people, please stop enabling these idiots by giving them clicks!
Right on! This is one of the most moronic ideas I have ever heard.
Is it only available in the US?
It would seem to be. Although I am in Toronto passing the “use my location” only generated results for New York state, and entering Toronto, ON yielded no results for anything.
For this and many other reasons I’ll stay with my Garmin app. It was only $23 or so on sale.
iRobot has it exactly right. Even in a fairly crowded island like Great Britain, there are lots of places, even on major road networks, with no cell coverage, and on top of that there’s the 500Mb/month data cap we have. I will never consider any navigation app that requires net access, I use apps with native mapping, like Viewranger that uses Ordnance Survey maps, as well as those from many other countries, like the US, and Co-pilot for the car.
Actually, I really like this. Its simple and fast. It just took the place of Google Places and Tank, for me. Nice.
I just use the Maps app.