TomTom car mount now available at US Apple store for $120
The Tomtom iPhone mounting kit is now available in the US Apple Store. We still think it is exploitation of iPhone customers when a full Tomtom can often be had for less than the $120 Apple Store price of the Mounting kit alone.
Especially when you consider you have to buy the $100 App too.
Even newer Tomtoms with screens almost an inch bigger than the iPhone's cost about the same as the mounting kit alone.
Can someone explain to us why you'd want to use your iPhone as a GPS rather than just buying a (cheaper, bigger, better) stand alone unit?
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Comments (28)
You wouldn't. They did this so people considering it would opt for the full TomTom kit, this way you have their hardware and are less likely to use your iPhone to switch to software made by someone else.
Not even for half that price.
About 3 days 2 late.
It’s not that a standalone navigation device is better because it’s cheaper. The most important advantage is more convenience. You can’t keep expensive stuff in your car, so you practically have to take your navigation device with you when you plan to use it. In my typical situation, I’m lost somewhere and kept my TomTom at home. It would be a lot easier just to plug in my iPhone, which I always keep in my pocket, and start to navigate.
$220 for this ‘convenience’ is too expensive for me. Especially because the TomTom app is not the best in comparison to Navigon’s MobileNavigator. I keep using my navigation device for now, until a car mount with a reasonable price appears.
So tell me how are you going to navigate on your iPhone when you get a phone call?
I think this is a huge waste of money. As mentioned you can purchase a standalone unit that will work a lot better.
If your sole reason for wanting to purchase the TomTom is because you are worried about your GPS being stolen from your car my I make a few suggestions.
-Move to a nicer area,
-Take your "expensive" items from your car.
-Lock your GPS in your glove box.
All of those sound like better ideas then buying a part-time GPS.
You know you're not supposed to talk on the phone while driving, right?
I am so glad you didn't post your name. If you had the entire world would know who the idiot who posted that message was.
You never heard or handsfree or bluetooth?
In your case the TomTom is not an option because it is far to difficult for you to figure out. Then again a door knob may be a difficult for you.
Hey be nice! That moron is exactly who TomTom is marketing this item to. No one is going to blow $200 plus for this crap.
I'd buy one, if they included redeemable iTunes gift cards with a download code of the app, ala the cards for free songs you pick up at Starbucks every week. Seems stupid to me that you have to pay for two separate parts. I understand, hardware costs money, but the way I see it they could sell the hardware+software for around $150, or the software alone in the iTunes store for about $100. This is pure exploitation.
way out of line….new units cheaper….
TomTom execs are out of line
Too expensive..especially given the fact that this $100 piece of garbage app never worked for me. I live in NYC and not once have I ever received a message other than Poor GPS signal.. Now they want another $120...how about they refund my $100 for a worthless app and I'll use that money to buy their stand alone device.
nope.
You are paying $99 so that your phone- that also checks your email, digs off into your iDisk, checks your twitter and FB, wakes you, lulls you to sleep, plays your music and video, plays your games, takes pictures and edits them, is your Kindle- can now also be a TomTom. To put it into a little perspective, my cyclocomputer is Garmin Edge 705. I payed an extra $99 so that it would come with North American maps. For $99, you're not just getting the North American maps for a TomTom, you're turning your phone into a TomTom. As for the extra $120 for the car kit, yeah it's a bit expensive, but I don't know what all went into designing it. I've ordered one and I'm sure I'll be glad that I did. I'm also sure it probably won't work with whatever dual core phenom Apple comes up with next.
Ouch too expensive, $120 for mount and app and you would have me thinking.
Only an IDIOT would pay for the app or the mounting hardware. What a waste of money. An excellent Garmin GPS could be purchased for $140-250 with a 4.3 inch screen. The iPhone is a PHONE, NOT a GPS unit you friggin MORONS!
I wonder how many dumb asses are actually planning on purchasing this crap?
Garbage, PERIOD!
I'm thinking this has been deliberately priced this way to snag the early adopters - it'll come down fast, it has to.
cant they at least somehow include the app for free?
I will give it two weeks before you see someone trying to dump one on eBay!
incredible! the holder itself now costs more than a entry-level tom tom machine! how stupid is this? how obvious is this total ripp off of customers???
I'm thinking that maybe it's that much to cover R&D costs as they probably don't expect many sales. It's there for people that are willing to buy it or who need it to make their older iPhone or Touch have a GPS.
Also remember it's more then a mount. It has blue tooth and a REAL GPS chip inside. It's not a little baby chip like in the phones. This will get as good a signal as a dedicated unit. So what hardware really makes up a GPS unit?
GPS chip, CPU, LCD, blue tooth in higher end models, software, and a plastic case to hold it all.
What is the iPhone really replacing. Just the CPU, LCD, and software.
Tom Tom sells the software for $100. I don't know how much their CPUs and LCDs cost but probably not much. The new TomTom iPhone mount has all the other components of a dedicated GPS unit inside minus the CPU and LCD. I suspect that still costs a lot of money to build. And again I doubt they expect to sell a lot obviously from the tone on this forum, none of you are going to buy it. Either will I and that will either force them to lower the price or stop making it.
I guess you geniuses totally miss the point that this is more than just a holder. It has not only a dedicated GPS chip in it, but a speaker and a microphone; in other words, EVERYTHING A "REAL" NAVIGATION DEVICE HAS, except the actual software. and the screen. Seen as such, one has to ask what is really overpriced, the TomTom car mount or the TomTom iPhone app? Having said that, TomTom pretty much has to come down on the price of the mount, I believe fairly soon.
BTW I have the Navigon iPhone app, and even though I only have a 3G iPhone (it apparently works much better on the 3GS), it works very well, much better than the TomTom, from what I gathered.
You're correct that Navigon is a much better app (in my opinion, and I have all three major GPS/navigation iPhone apps).
But to the rest of your points, aren't the (touch)-screen and the software the major costs of a GPS unit? Everything is that goes into one is low-cost chips and commodity things like circuit boards and batteries. This thing is way overpriced for what it is, and for what it must cost to build.
Sad, that TomTom could not see the forest for the trees! Pricing, packaging and functionality done right and they could own both the standalone and iPhone (and someday the Android) markets. But, lack of vision will leave them a tier two player in the near future because of substandard functionality, bad pricing and packaging the message wrong. Net, "so close ... but, so far" or if your prefer, "I coulda been a contender"!
This post certainly brought out the emotional responses!
Lump me in with those who consider it too pricey given that a standalone one, with a bigger screen and easier to use while driving (yes, I've used both the iPhone TomTom and a standalone GPS for comparison) is less money.
TomTom's not even the best of the iPhone GPS apps. Navigon's much slicker looking and has text to voice for street names. Last I used it, TomTom didn't say the name of the street. I'm sure they'll catch up there, but TomTom is ugly to the core, and that's a major rewrite to fix.
You could rationalize the cost of this hardware a bit more...it does give you better GPS signals (perhaps even uses WAAS?), it's a windshield mount holder, and a recharging device all in one. Seems like the typical windshield mount with power is in the $30-ish range, something to consider.
I won't be getting one, but I won't call anyone who does an idiot, either.
I went with the cheaper $35 CoPilot app and I've been quite happy to use that instead of lugging along my Garmin Nuvi.
My phone is with me wherever I go ... my car, other people's cars, rental cars when I travel, on my bike, on foot. No way would I lug a stand-alone GPS along to all of those. So the convenience factor of having a GPS app on my iPhone is significant and worth a bit of money.
Having said that, over $100 for a dedicated mount that DOES NOT carry that same convenience factor is absurd. I picked up a dash mount for my iPhone from Mount Guys for under $50 and it works quite nicely. Sure, a solid speakerphone and bluetooth connectivity might be cool, but not for this price.
TomTom priced themselves out of the market here. I predict they will drastically reduce the price when these fail to sell.
I went with the cheaper $35 CoPilot app and I've been quite happy to use that instead of lugging along my Garmin Nuvi.
My phone is with me wherever I go ... my car, other people's cars, rental cars when I travel, on my bike, on foot. No way would I lug a stand-alone GPS along to all of those. So the convenience factor of having a GPS app on my iPhone is significant and worth a bit of money.
Having said that, over $100 for a dedicated mount that DOES NOT carry that same convenience factor is absurd. I picked up a dash mount for my iPhone from Mount Guys for under $50 and it works quite nicely. Sure, a solid speakerphone and bluetooth connectivity might be cool, but not for this price.
TomTom priced themselves out of the market here. I predict they will drastically reduce the price when these fail to sell.