I was interviewed yesterday for a Business Week article that appears today, discussing the value of mobile-phone-based GPS services and why they're becoming so popular. The article is well-written and covers the bases in a couple quick pages. It's kind of funny to be interviewed as a consumer - Most of my interview experience has been as a security expert, so this was fun.

I'm a power mobile user in a very practical sense. I travel a lot, and very frequently to places I have never been before. As a result, I am always having to find my way to new locations in unfamiliar lands. So, over the past couple years, GPS-enabled technology  has become my friend.

I started my GPS navigation experience a few years back with a laptop and a serial USB add-on that you stuck on your dash, powered separately via lighter socket, etc. eventually I updated to a USB GPS device that worked similarly. The software I used (Delorme's Street Atlas USA, a couple different versions) was very cool and you could actually speak to it and it would take your commands and talk back to you. I could say, "Computer, where am I?" and it would reply with something like, "You are heading north on US Highway 30 at 61 miles per hour. You are in Columbia County, Or-ee-gohn." It never really pronounced Oregon correctly, but hey that's the text-to-speech technology of a few years ago. The hardware and software has all been substantially upgraded since then and works even better. But I can't lug a laptop around in the car to do simple navigation (although I did just that on a trip all over southern California once), plus there's a whole class of information I use today that you just don't have access to on the laptop in the car.

I also got my 4-wheeler ATV with GPS capability onboard. I pretty much never use it, but on occasion it's been useful to mark waypoints at intersections on logging roads I'm cruising (oh wait, I *never *do that) so I can know which turns to take on the way back. There's no map capability, but an arrow points at your next waypoint and the display tells you how far away it is. Pretty useful.

Eventually I decided I needed something more usable, which at the time meant picking up a stand-alone in-car GPS device - the Magellan Roadmate 760. It was a great unit. I'd decided prior to that not to get an in-dash unit (and I am glad I did, since I never travel distances in my own car, see further down). It served me well, but as I traveled more and more I found it to be too large and clunky to stuff in a backpack and run through airports and in rental cars. So I gave it to a friend of mine who used it until it crapped out.

My next device was smaller Magellan unit, on sale at Costco, and included real-time traffic information over the air and the ability to suggest alternate routes, which is very cool. It's a great device (and my friend who had the 760 is using it now), but again it's one more thing to carry around. I found myself printing out paper driving directions or copy/pasting/emailing the Google Maps directions to myself before I left for a trip, instead of packing and carrying the GPS unit. Again, I have enough junk to carry around, and even the compact model meant too much stuff.

When I got my Blackberry 8800 with GPS built into the unit and the TeleNav service, I had found the perfect navigation device for my needs. Some people argue that paying ten bucks a month for the service is not something they'd be willing to do, and that Google Maps on the Blackberry is awesome, but I disagree (strongly). Google Maps is cool, but it's far from a useful and safe navigation system. You have to type, keyboard navigate, and read tiny print. Plus, it doesn't have anywhere near the information provided through the TeleNav service.

I wrote about my experiences with the Blackberry and TeleNav in the past. You might want to read those entries for some early perspective:
First five hours with the Blackberry 8800 - GPS navigation is like... Wow! - TeleNav v5.1 upgrade on the at&t Blackberry 8800 offers real-time traffic and overall improvements

In those entries I explained a few of the real differentiators of the service. Here's a summary of what I get from the TeleNav service that makes it so perfect:
Maps are always up-to-date with the latest available data and can be downloaded as needed. With a standalone device you have to download map updates, which you must pay for, and in the real world the GPS device makers rarely make updates available. The annual cost (since I already have the Blackberry and its cost is already easily justified for its various other uses) is about $120.00, which means after about three years you'll spend as much as you would on a mid-tier stand-alone GPS device - One that doesn't have live traffic updates and where the maps are only as accurate as the day the manufacturer loaded them on the device (meaning always out of date). I always have my phone with me, and in turn I always have my GPS device with me. No extra cords or brackets or suction cups or anything to haul around. Small, tiny, compact, and works great. - Because it's on a data-enabled phone, the service provides all sorts of useful real-time capabilities in its directories and interfaces.

I can enter an address, search for a class of business, or type in a name of a business or place, and it will find the closest matches to my location, let me call them and route me to them. Better than Google Maps does, by far. Advanced directory services like search for the closest gas station, or search for the lowest gas prices near me. Let me tell you, when you're in a hurry to get to an airport and don't want to pay the $8 a gallon the rental company charges to fill the stupid car for you, that $9.95 a month starts to sounds really inexpensive. And it is, after all, about the savings of time and money, not just the direct cost of the service. - I get real-time traffic and re-routing, which has proven useful a few times, as well as turn by turn directions spoken out loud with a clear visual view of the immediate situation, so I can glance and see what's next. Google Maps does only a rudimentary version of this, which requires finding the right keys to click, reading a lot of information on the screen rather than looking at the road, and a map scrolling feature that frequently fails. Simple fact: It's a lot safer and usability is better with the TeleNav interface and capabilities. Google maps is cool if you want to know where you are and maybe your passenger is telling you where to turn next. Otherwise it's just not up to par with the services and software available out there today.

I like the TeleNav so much I actually pulled the SIM card out of my iPhone the other day while I was up in Seattle and put it into the Blackberry 8800 so I could use the TeleNav GPS service to find my way around (and interestingly it worked swapping the card). I brought the Blackberry with me just in case I needed it for specifically that. Yeah, I know - back to carrying two devices. Well, at least they're small ones.

Now, if TeleNav could be installed and work on the iPhone, we'd be screaming! We can only hope.