Add Garmin to the list of companies announcing plans to introduce Android-based handsets in 2009. Garmin said its nuvifone will link GPS features with Google Maps.
The handset is expected to be the first in a series from Garmin, according to the company’s head of Asia Pacific marketing, Tony An.
An said while the nuvifone will launch this Spring, a number of others based on Android will appear during the second half of 2009. The Garmin phones will be produced by another company, reports said Monday.
Friday, Samsung said it would launch its first Android phone in the U.S. sometime between April and June of 2009. Development of the handset has been accelerated to meet the “specific needs of local carriers,” an unnamed Samsung official told the South Korean ET News.
Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.
4 responses to “Garmin: GPS Android Phone Set for Spring 2009”
does this mean no Garmin app for the iPhone?
I’m sort of surprised by this. Wouldn’t it suit Garmin better to partner with existing vendors to include the Garmin GPS software with its phones? Seriously, who is going to buy a Garmin phone? I’m sure there are some people that buy it, but I can’t imagine many would.
Is Android the start of a never ending Brand X phone where every company with any name in electronics is spitting one out? Acer Phone? Dell Phone? Tivo Phone, etc ?
Yes, I know, there is Apple and the iPhone, but it is a ground up phone. These other phones are just going to be like laptops made by dozens of other manufactures with Brand X’s logo painted on.