Engadget is reporting that the much-awaited TomTom’s iPhone Car Kit briefly showed up on Apple’s online store in the UK with an asking price of £99.95.
Though we don’t have an official confirmation from Apple, it looks like it was removed from the online store due to complaints from iPhone users who had already bought the iPhone app.
As you might know, TomTom’s Turn-By-Turn GPS Application for the iPhone with Voice Navigation was released last month and is available on the iPhone App Store for £59.99 and it has been quite popular since its launch.
According to the FAQ section of TomTom’s iPhone Car kit, TomTom was offering the entire kit which included the car mount, the GPS signal booster and the iPhone app for £99.95.
“You get both the TomTom navigation app for your iPhone 3GS or 3G and the docking kit to hold your iPhone securely in place on your dashboard or windscreen.”
£99.95 for both the iPhone app and the car kit seems like a nice deal but it seems to have generated a lot of complaints from iPhone users who had already bought the iPhone app as they had assumed that the iPhone app and the Car kit would be sold separately.
It looks like Apple and TomTom have three options to handle this situation:
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They figure out a way to compensate iPhone users who had already bought the iPhone app.
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Say that it was a mistake and the iPhone car kit won’t include the iPhone app and sell the car kit for £99.95.
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Say it was a mistake and the iPhone car kit won’t include the iPhone app but reduce its pricing to £39.95.
Let's hope TomTom goes for option 3 as £99.95 for just the car mount and the GPS signal booster seems to be too steep and they won’t have to figure out a way to compensate iPhone users who had already bought the iPhone app.
Update:
AppleInsider reports that TomTom has opted for option 2, the hardware will cost £99.95 and will be sold separately from the TomTom iPhone app.
"TomTom announces today that the TomTom car kit for the iPhone will have a recommended retail price of £99.99. The TomTom car kit will be available this October and will be sold separately from the TomTom app."
They have also provided some more details about its compatibility:
"It will be compatible with the iPhone 2G, 3G and 3GS. All further details on the car kit will be made available soon."
iPhone 2G users will find this iPhone accessory even more useful as it does not have an internal GPS receiver like iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS. But I wonder why it doesn't support for iPod Touch, if it can support an iPhone 2G.
Do you think TomTom's iPhone Car Kit is worth it for £99.95? Do you plan to buy it?
[via Engadget and AppleInsider]
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That's lame, stupid retarded people moaning. The kit has been announced for ages, WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST WAIT??! Now instead of an awesome deal we get a rip-off product. Nice.
£99.95 for a Car kit?….they must be out of their minds. The cost for making one of those is minimal….this is a total rip off!!!
Dont worry, it wont stay £99.95 for long time as all the apps and accessories are expensive when they just comes out, and the price drop significantly after couple of months. Even Apple's devices have the same situation. folks, just be more patient.
£99.95 For that buy yourself a GPS, OMG PPL you guys are so dumb.
Even for the kit and the app is still kinda steap.
Won't buy. Too expensive and stupid reaction from both customers and Tomtom.
I bought the app, and was waiting for the car kit – I was expecting to pay another £30 or £40 for it.
The benefits of the kit are not worth £99 to me, so I shan't be buying until/unless the price comes down to a reasonable level.
Sort of wish I hadn't bought the TomTom app now, and I bet sales of it will drop as people realise it's too expensive… I gather 'other' turn-by-turn apps are better optimised for the in-phone GPS – so buy that instead.
CoPilot Live is awesome and works perfectly with inbuilt gps on my iphone 3g. £9.95 for a dash phone holder and in car charger and i'm laughing!
Hmmm…. now let me see…. I can buy THIS for roughly $200 of my currency (AUD).. Plus the cost of the app which is another $100…. Ignoring the cost of the phone itself which is roughly about $1100 including the plan.. Or I could get a REAL GPS unit and pay about $300-$400 and get a product designed for the purpose. Well that certainly is a difficult choice TomTom! I'm glad you spent so much time finding just the right price for your cradle. Cheers to you!
On a more serious note I've got a Belkin cradle with an FM tuner built in, and the Sat Nav apps work adequately enough just with that. Its not perfect because occasionally when I'm pulled up at the lights or something it'll start playing silly buggers by switching me to the opposite side of the road, or thinking I'm a few metres forward or backward from where I should be, but I'll take that small, niggling problem over 99 fruiting pounds anyday!
Not only is it a total rip-off, they are as much as admitting it is a total rip-off by having put the package together for the same price in the first place. Anyone who pays 99 pounds for it now would be a sucker.
That might have made my decision for me: go Navigon.
Martha
What a rip! I do not have tomtom… But I do have a very nice window mount cradle that only cost me 30.00 US.
Kiss my ass tomtom. Garmin makes a better product. You only make it easier for us to go some place else.
THE PROBLEM IS THAT TOO MANY DUMB PEOPLE WOULD BUY THAT SHIT ,THERE IS NO WAY IN THE WORLD I WOULD SPEND THAT KIND OF MONEY ON A STUPID CRADDLE , MY NAVIGON WORKS PERFECT , THE ONLY REASON WHY I WOULD WANNA BUY A CRADDLE IS JUST TO HAVE THE PHONE ON THE DASHBOARD , FUCK YOU TOM TOM
what's wrong with you all people?!! This is iphone HACKING site!! why you are all talking about buy this buy that?! Just fucking HACK the iphone, you will get all the app for FREE!! no matter it's a $99 or $999999 app. Fuck TomTom!! That's where we hacker comes to make the $99 stuff worth a SHIT!!
Currently using a 'cracked' copy of TomTom UK, refuse to pay a huge corporation large sums of money when i already own one of their top-end motorbike units.
I'll stick with my Carphone warehouse mobile charger and my kensington screenmount (both for £20)
£99 is taking the pi55 bigtime!
(Nope, no hangups about using cracked software here)
I would actually consider buying the car mount for three reasons:
First, the car mounts boost GPS signal. The GPS chip on the iphone isn't very strong and often I have trouble locking in the signal
Second, it works with any Navigation application, so I can use it with navigon, my prefered navgation app.
Finally, as maxmixdv said this is iphonehacks.com, come on people! When you get these softwares for free, the value of this accessory is not bad.
All that being said, with the prices here in Canada where I live it will probably go for sale between 100$ and 130$, high quality car mounts and FM transmitters often go for around that price here. The price is a bit steep but not that bad.
I also strongly suggest jailbreaking and installing backgrounder is you're serious about navigating with the iphone. Getting a call when navigating is a nuisance without backgrounding enabled.
Total rip off they can stick it. I will wait till the Chinese make a more sensibly priced alternative.
I agree this looks like a reverse engineer's wet dream come true!
Give it 2 months tops and you'll see the same thing on eBay for 30 bucks! 10 with out the gps booster.
OK, so TomTom have opted for option 2, £99.95 without the app!!!
I'm opting for option ME!!!
Jailbreaking, Patching and Installing TomTom on my mates iPhones for free (17 so far and counting)
It's my single finger salute to TomTom
What a load of rubbish! £99! They really think we are dying for this that we would pay £99. I'm using a cheap £5.99 cradle and you know what? it works very well with my cheap £5.99 in car charger. I also have the benifit of plugging this into my car stereo via AUX all for under £20!
TomTom, Suck my foot!
I cant believe they retracted their statement and are now selling the 2 items (app and mount) seperately. That cheap mount costs them pennies and they're going to rip the public because a few people jumped the gun. They're doing the same thing as Apple did when they came out with the "Newest high tech invention on the planet" the Iphone 3g and then 1 year later gave us what we wanted originally for cheaper, only now if you bought an Iphone b4 you get ripped…anyone as upset as me???
can you crack he holde?
ILL B GETTING HIS YA