Tomtom Carkit on US apple store and Tomtom website

[mvl]

The carkit is on the apple store now for $120, it is currently unavailable for shipping but it appears you can pre-order it.

 

[aegould]

Ummm..well...it *was* on the US site. For all but two days! It's no longer listed ANYWHERE on Apple's US site. Weird.

 

[bwyrwitzke]

I ordered mine last night for the US Apple Store and the invoice says it will ship on Nov 17th.

 

[mvl]

Tomtom officially announced US availability. It's also available on the Tomtom web site.

I'm editing post title to add the Tomtom website.

 

[gatorguy]

The functionality of the mount has received fairly good reviews so far, except for the necessity for the additional gps chip. Some early buyers have indicated they've seen no change and a few others have noted a marginal improvement. Other than that, the only other negative comment I've seen regards the way Bluetooth is used and integrated. Quality-wise, it's excellent. Of course it should be for that price!

 

[mvl]

Tomtom used to get a bad rap for reception with app 1.0 vs the competition.

My guess is that app 1.1's "GPS signal improvement" meant Tomtom started listening to Skyhook (iPhone's wifi hotspot location registry) and perhaps AT&T A-GPS.

In the downtowns of cities, satellite reception is pretty horrible. My Tomtom 720 has the same Sirf3 chipset as the Tomtom mount, but it performs horribly once nearby buildings get above 20 stories. I'm not sure if the EPT on a 920/930 fixes that because it doesn't lose signal, it just puts you on the wrong street because of the building reflections.

For the big downtowns, you need a backup to satellite, even with a top-of-the-line chip like SirfStarIII. Either a built in car GPS that can use the wheels as backup, or a backup local technology like Skyhook.

My suspicion is that in dense urban areas where most iPhone owners live, the iPhone Skyhook/AGPS backup tech is so good that that a SirfStar doesn't help. But take an iPhone into the interstate (especially rural mountanous windy roads) and my prediction is that the Tomtom mount will shine.

 

[bwyrwitzke]

I just got mine this week and haven't had a chance to really test it out. One thing that I do love is the way the system mounts. Very clever on TomTom's part. I had purchasaed another mount when I first picked up my 3GS and was very disappointed. Due to the angle of my windshield, the other mount required 3 extension arms for proper viewing, which then made it bounce even when driving on smooth roads.

Bruce