On September 4, Google announced the launch of its voice enabled navigation in India. As of now, the service will be available only in Android mobiles (version 2.2 and above) and desktop version of Google Maps. “Navigation” is a native and pre-loaded app in Android mobiles. With the recent feature roll-out, users will be able to navigate with voice assistance (similar to the street-by-street navigation in high end Nokia phones), view LIVE traffic both on mobile and desktop maps. The best part is, if users select “Indian English”, then the voice will have Indian accent. We tested the android app and it works wonderfully. The turn suggestions are pretty accurate than few of the apps that are currently available in the market.

This voice enabled navigation feature of Google intensifies the competition in the (Indian) market. The equivalent of this feature is available as Waze, Navfree, Osmand, Mapmyindia. These apps are available both for iOS and Android. As we mentioned already, Nokia has this feature in-built in their (high-end) mobile for years.

Apple’s iOS 6 will have this feature when they roll it out to market this fall. Once iOS 6 is released, its going to be interesting to see who has the maximum “navigation” share.

The whole map ecosystem is going to be spiced up because in iOS 6 release, Apple is deploying its own version of map (phasing out of Google Maps).

Picture Courtesy:
Voice image: Waze
Author: Karthick Prabu