by Mitch Wagner

The iPhone this week got a new entry in the fast-moving category of GPS software: MotionX-GPS Drive is by far the least expensive of the half-dozen alternatives, with a “holy cow!” low price of $2.99, with an annual subscription of $25. It’s a heck of a lot cheaper than any of the alternatives.

A half-dozen vendors, including TomTom and AT&T, have come out with iPhone nav apps. These are relatively big-ticket purchases; the subscription-based AT&T app is $10 per month. Other apps have one-time purchase prices ranging from $35 for CoPilot NA to $100 for the TomTom app.

Like the AT&T app, the MotionX-GPS Drive (iTunes store link) is a networked app, it doesn’t store maps on the device. That has several advantages, chief among them that all the map information and points of interest are up-to-date. If a street recently got made one-way, or a new restaurant opened nearby, the MotionX-GPS is more likely to know about it faster than an app that stores its data on the iPhone.

Also, the MotionX app is likely to be much faster and more responsive than competitors that store their data on the device; I have used the others and they’re all slow, as they access enormous maps.

Likewise, the MotionX app will take up less space on your device; the competitors take up around 1.5 gigabytes, and require twice that to install, the MotionX app requires just a few megabytes.

Read the full article on: www.informationweek.com

Fullpower Technologies, the global leader for wearable sensing solutions, today launched MotionX-GPS Drive for North America on the iPhone. This is the first door-to-door navigation application developed specifically for iPhone users.

MotionX: Next Generation Driving and Pedestrian Navigation
MotionX-GPS Drive turns any iPhone 3G or 3GS into the next generation car and pedestrian navigation solution. MotionX introduces new features not yet seen on mobile devices, including “door-to-door” personal navigation tools, user interface innovations that greatly simplify the navigation experience, and integration of live search capabilities.

Drawing from the feedback of over 2 million iPhone MotionX-GPS users, MotionX has built a complete navigation solution specifically for the iPhone. This is not a quick port of an ancient application. MotionX-GPS Drive is state-of-the-art with a state-of-the-art business model, which means users get a better solution at a fraction of the cost.

Fullpower developed MotionX-GPS Drive because customers asked for it. There are more than 2 million iPhone MotionX-GPS customers who love the outdoors, are typically 16 to 43 years old, very active, into sports and love their iPhones. These users also need to find places and get there door-to-door. MotionX asked them what they wanted and then started with a clean slate.

The result is MotionX-GPS Drive: only for the iPhone, designed with active, younger iPhone users in mind. It’s different, better, more focused: It’s not a port of an ancient relic developed on 20 other “feature phones” for carriers. What this means for every iPhone user is that MotionX-GPS Drive is a better solution.

“Today MotionX shows the future of car and pedestrian navigation on the iPhone,” said Philippe Kahn, CEO of Fullpower. “We are fully committed to continually innovating and radically improving the navigation experience. The iPhone is the perfect platform to invent the future of navigation.”

MotionX-GPS Drive has an introductory price of $2.99 and covers the U.S. and Canada.

MotionX: Everything is Live and Dynamic

Everything about MotionX-GPS Drive is dynamic including search, maps and routing. This fully-live, always up-to-date, connected experience is unparalleled, leveraging the full power of the Internet and the iPhone. MotionX-GPS Drive is designed and optimized for the iPhone, and provides a user interface for iPod music and for the iPhone 3GS compass. MotionX-GPS Drive turns any iPhone 3G or 3GS into the next generation vehicle and pedestrian navigation solution.

MotionX live connected solution vs. on-board competitors — with the MotionX-GPS Drive solution, users benefit from a fully-live, always-up-to-date, connected experience for navigation. Search, maps, routing, points of interest (POIs), and relevant destination information, such as phone numbers, are delivered to the user — all current, real-time and up-to-date. This is a significant advantage over on-board solutions, such as those available from providers TomTom and Navigon, which require users to download and pre-install map data with tedious data loads that are in excess of a gigabyte. Off-board navigation data is static, and hence, becomes outdated the moment it is loaded onto the user’s device.

MotionX: The Best at a Fraction of the Cost

About Fullpower/MotionX

Founded in 2003 by Sonia Lee and Philippe Kahn, Fullpower’s mission is to put motion-sensing in every mobile device. As the leader in wearable sensing solutions, Fullpower is building on its expertise in wireless sensor technology to deliver unique, interactive motion-sensing applications. MotionX solutions are designed and developed in Santa Cruz, Calif.

by Walter S. Mossberg

MotionX-GPS Drive: Of all the apps, this one looks and works most like a typical iPhone app, and least like a navigation program ported from another device. Its main screen has a clever menu arranged in a circle. It’s also fairly small—just 10 megabytes or so. But it must download maps and other info each time you start a route. This also allows it to update the information on the fly. Drive also is potentially the cheapest of the four apps I tested. It will cost $2.99 and included is 30-days of Live Voice Guidance. After that, it’s $25 a year.

This app worked well in my tests, and is packed with features, including live traffic, a route summary, and integrated music control. It understood my D.C. test address, but it doesn’t announce street names, and its function buttons are very small and labeled with tiny type.

Read the full article on: http://ptech.allthingsd.com

Now MotionX Users Can Import Tracks and
Waypoints Wirelessly Anytime, Anywhere

User Case Study 2: MotionX-GPS Users Share Cycling Tracks

David Bernstein of the FredCast Cycling Podcast recently recorded a track with MotionX-GPS of the Glenwild Loop near Park City, Utah. He shared the track via email with a fellow biker visiting from Texas who wanted to ride the loop. Using GPX import, Bernstein’s friend can import the track and follow it directly with MotionX-GPS.

"I wanted to be able to record the Glenwild loop because I have a friend who comes and visits Park City once a year, and he’s always looking for new trails to ride. I unloaded my bike and the first thing I did was load Motion-GPS and let it acquire a satellite signal. I hopped on my bike, pressed the start button on the Track Recorder, slipped my phone in my jersey pocket and didn’t give it another thought until I returned back to the trailhead. After finishing, I saved the track and sent it to my friend as an email. When he comes here next, he’ll be able to upload it into his device. It’s a great app, something you should check out, and best of all, you don’t need that handheld unit anymore."

MotionX-GPS Top Navigation Solution on the iPhone

Embraced by more than 2 million outdoor enthusiasts, MotionX-GPS 7.1 for the iPhone 3G and 3GS is available for $2.99 for a limited time through the Apple App Store.
Fullpower’s MotionX technology platform is the leader for wearable sensing solutions. MotionX solutions span navigation, imaging, life-sciences and energy management. Today the iPhone is the premier showcase for MotionX solutions, with more than 3 million App Store downloads.

About Fullpower/MotionX

Founded in 2003 by Sonia Lee and Philippe Kahn, Fullpower’s mission is to put motion-sensing in every mobile device. As the leader in wearable sensing solutions, Fullpower is building on its expertise in wireless sensor technology to deliver unique, interactive motion-sensing applications. MotionX solutions are designed and developed in Santa Cruz, Calif.

Important Links:

MotionX-GPS V7.1 in the iTunes Store:
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=299949744&mt=8

MotionX Website:
www.motionx.com

Contact:
Tami Casey
Kulesa Faul for MotionX
650.340.1984

Omar Radwan lives in the hot desert of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates where temperatures soar to 125+ degrees Fahrenheit in the summer months. Water in this part of the world is often times more expensive to desalinate than it is to refine oil, and so finding fresh water can be very difficult. The charity: water foundation helps to set up water projects throughout Africa, Asia, and other developing areas to provide people with wells, towers, and filtration systems needed to have fresh water.

Omar has committed to bike 1,000 kilometers over a three month period to help raise awareness for poor water conditions in underdeveloped countries. His goal is to raise $1000 in donations to support his effort; 100% of the donations will be given to the water projects through charity: water.
Omar’s page can be found here: http://mycharitywater.org/omar.

“Since I am an iPhone lover and a huge fan of Fullpower’s superior MotionX-GPS software, I have decided to make it my official mileage counter for my 1,000k challenge,” said Radwan.

“I just activate the software, toss my phone in my backpack, and bike away! After my rides I analyze how far I went, how long it took, my average and max speed, then I save the data for future statistics. I post my progress on my charity page — MotionX-GPS is helping me to meet my goal of 1,000 kilometers and raise a minimum of $1,000 for the foundation.”

Omar is also an amateur photographer and takes photos along his rides around the island of Abu Dhabi. He sent us a few of his photos including the Royal Palace, Sheik Zayed Masjid, and other city shots. He also sent us one of his recent tracks — a beautiful 18 kilometer ride along the coast, shown here in Google Earth.

Wolfgang Roellig recently attended mac at camp, hailed as “the biggest Mac community event in Europe”, in Naumburg (Saale), Germany. In numerous workshops with themes of Apple, Adobe and other software, newbies as well as experienced users broaden their knowledge in various areas.

“This year they offered many topics about photography and geotagging, so I was able to use my skills in these areas,” said Roellig.

“I used my Fujifilm S2Pro, a FinePix E550 and the iPhone 3G with MotionX-GPS. I used MotionX to track photo excursions and mark the spots we took photos, then discussed the route, reviewed our waypoints and tagged our images. I showed your app to many iPhone users and they were suprised of the capabilities and the intuitive user interface of MotionX-GPS. I also explained that I use it nearly every day when I’m cycling, biking with my Yamaha Dragstar, or walking.”

Wolfgang and the other participants use a free software application for the Mac called myTracks for geotagging their photos. If you’re interested in trying this out, download myTracks and follow these simple steps:

1. Set your digital camera’s clock as closely to your iPhone’s time as possible.
2. Acquire a signal using MotionX-GPS.
3. Start the MotionX Track Recorder at the same time you take your first photo with your digital camera.
4. Take a walk, stopping occasionally to take a photo.
5. When you’re done taking photos, stop the MotionX Track Recorder and email the track to yourself.
6. Add your photos and the GPX file to myTracks. Your track is shown on a map from OpenStreetMap, and your photos are linked to the track so you can directly see where you took your photos. Locations can also be written to the EXIF tags of your image files (geotagging).

HoudaGeo is another software package that enables photo geotagging with a few additional options that are worth checking out.

Source: ABI Research and MarketWatch: www.marketwatch.com

LONDON, Aug 31, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Shipments of dedicated sport and fitness hardware such as Suunto GPS watches, Garmin cycling computers, and GPS golf rangefinders are suffering from the recession. But smartphone fitness applications such as MotionX-GPS are booming, with 1.2 million downloads in 2009. Continued application market growth will contribute to an annual growth rate of 34% through 2014.

“Garmin’s recent announcement that its outdoor/fitness division’s revenues slipped into negative territory highlights the vulnerability of its premium Forerunner GPS watch and Edge cycling ranges,” says ABI Research practice director Dominique Bonte. “The economic downturn is the major factor, but the availability of affordable converged solutions has also played a role. However, in the longer term there is still a bright future for optimized sport and fitness devices offering unique advantages in reliability, size, features, robustness, and GPS accuracy.”

Smartphone applications

While serious sport and fitness practitioners will continue to prefer optimized devices, recreational users are discovering smartphone applications such as the remarkably successful MotionX-GPS, GolfLogix and Golfshot iPhone applications, with real-time sharing of statistics a major driver. The free Nokia Sports Tracker has been downloaded by millions of users. Nokia has also announced the N79 Active package including a Polar heart rate monitor.

While Trimble Outdoors’ AllSportGPS and BonesInMotion’s BIM Active solutions are available for a monthly fee from US carriers, most software on application stores is available for a one-off payment (also an option for AllSportGPS) illustrating the business model shift that is sidelining carriers. Moreover, many free fitness applications are on offer.

Double challenge

Both dedicated and converged GPS fitness technology vendors continue to face the double challenge of integrating high-sensitivity, low-power GPS receivers in small form factors, and of developing affordable wireless sensor accessories, with standardized Low Energy Bluetooth (BLE) expected to challenge the Garmin-owned ANT proprietary protocol.

ABI Research’s new “GPS Sport and Fitness Solutions” (http://www.abiresearch.com/research/1004316) study examines trends, features, drivers and barriers, and form factors including a SWOT analysis. It describes the GPS sport and fitness ecosystem and provides strategic recommendations. The study contains forecasts by region for shipments and revenues of GPS watches, GPS accessories, cycling computers, golf rangefinders and converged solutions. It is part of the Location Based Services Research Service (http://www.abiresearch.com/products/service/Location_Based_Services).

SOURCE: ABI Research

ABI Research
Christine Gallen, +44.203.326.0142
pr@abiresearch.com