Garmin Nuvifone Delayed Until 2009
GPS juggernaut - Garmin - released their 2008 quarterly report, most of which highlighted impressive financial growth and gains. Among all the percentages and dollar signs was the disappoiting announcement that the Garmin Nuvifone, Garmin’s first foray into the mobile phone market, wouldn’t be available until 2009.
Here is an excerpt from the Quarterly Report:
“The nuvifone will not be available in fourth quarter as previously announced. While we had hoped to have carrier launches in the fourth quarter, we have found that meeting some of the carrier specific requirements will take longer than anticipated. We remain pleased with carrier interest in the device and are working toward making necessary design changes to meet their requirements. We anticipate launching the product during the first half of 2009.”
When the Nuvifone was initially announced it was slated for the 3rd quarter of 2008. It was then delayed until the 4th quarter of 2008. The move to 2009 is arguably more painful as GPS devices and Mobile Phones are both electronics on the holiday shopping list. The Nuvifone could have been a hot holiday product, but instead, will be competing with additional Android devices that will likely have GPS Navigation via 3rd party applications.
I wonder which carrier’s they’re working with and what specific design changes need to be altered to fit the carrier’s requirements. That information probably won’t leak out… but we’ll keep you posted with anythiing extra we find… including more specific details concerning the Nuvifone’s release date.
By the way, Garmin posted a 23% quarter-to-quarter increase in revenue and YTD revenue up 28% compared to last year’s pace. The company has already $1.58 billion of business this year.
[Via CrunchGear]
A Glance at the Garmin NuviFone!
Last month we first heard about the Garmin Nuviphone, the powerhouse GPS company’s first foray into the mobile phone market. Today, we’re getting a pretty extensive look at the phone itself, not only from tech bloggers around the globe, but also from Garmin themselves…
You see that “available Q3 2008″ part? We thought so… looks like the holiday shopping season is already heating up.
The announcement comes at a crucial juncture for Garmin. With an increasing number of phones including GPS and mapping services, mobile companies are starting to chomp on the likes of GPS and Digital Camera market share. The NuviFone should help Garmin establish a foothold before the combination of the iPhone and Android Phones with Google Maps and other 3rd party applications brush them to the side.
But the Nuvifone is far from a quick “answer” to emerging mobile market. It’s a well thought out and planned device that has what Laptop Magazine calls a “killer UI”. They had a chance to enjoy a hands on with the Nuvifone and play with its 3.5″ screen, digital camera, media options and other features. Unfortunately, the GPS functionality was not yet integrated and media hadn’t been pre-loaded… so the actual quality of the device is still somewhat shrouded in mystery. But it looks extremely promising.
Want to see the NuviFone in action? Garmin whipped up a promotional video that show you how the Nuvifone will, “revolutionize the way we navigate… life.” As a side note, we love the way he says revolutionize.
Garmin also gives us a nice little biography of how the NuviFone came to be in a movie-like production/commercial that allows them to tell us everything thats packed into the device without boring us to death. Props on that:
A few pictures from Navigadget suggest that the Garmin Nuvifone will be available in white:
They look photoshopped if you ask us, but I suppose we’ll know the truth soon enough.
And for your viewing delight, here is a boat load of Garmin Nuvifone pictures that will hopefully hold you over until we get some hands on videos to share with you.
