In early 2008 Garmin announced their intention to release the Nuviphone, a GPS centric cell phone, which would extend Garmin’s GPS/PND strengths into the cell phone market. However, as 2008 passed, there was still no Nuvifone. Many have speculated that passing carrier certifications have led to delays in the release of the Nuvifone. In December, the Nuvifone cleared FCC certification process and on February 4th,Garmin brought the Nuvifone back to center stage when they announced their partnership with Asus.
The first device will be branded the Garmin-Asus G60, and will run on a proprietary Linux operating system. The Garmin-Asus relationship is not going to become its own legal entity; the two companies intend to release a full line of Nuvifones on other key operating systems such as Android.
While Asus is not a tier 1 handset manufacturer, it has had some measured success designing and distributing WinMo devices with unique value add applications such as a business card reader. Garmin is a well known industry leader in the PND space and is concerned about GPS capable cell phones pushing into its space. Both companies needed something, Asus needed a unique phone with star potential and Garmin needed a solid phone to bring their LBS expertise into the cell phone space.
The Nuvifone 60 is the first phone to place LBS functionality at the forefront of phone design. Unlike the vast majority of GPS capable phones where GPS and LBS are an afterthought, the Nuvifone brings LBS access directly to key applications on the device.
Designing and building a cell phone is no small undertaking, and designing a good one is even harder. While it may be true that phone OEMs are the best at building phones, they are constantly challenged to cram immense disparate functionality into a single device. To meet these demands, OEMs attempt to reuse prior successes to fit new technologies and applications. Unfortunately this approach tends to dilute the effectiveness and usability of these technologies.
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