Garmin nuviphone announced

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1240&tag=nl.e539

Garmin made a surprise announcement last night of a new iPhone competitor. nuvifone (rhymes with “MovieFone”… coincidence?) has an impressive feature set, including:

* Has iPhone met its match with nuvifone?Quad-band GSM mobile phone
* 3G HSDPA
* 3.5-inch touchscreen interface
* HTML Web browser
* WiFi
* Multi-network instant messaging
* MMS media messaging
* Still & video camera
o Automatically geotags photo with the latitude and longitude reference of where the image was taken
* MP3 and MPEG4/AAC player
* Garmin Online service with constantly-updating information:
o Real-time traffic
o Fuel prices
o Stock prices
o Sport scores
o News reports
o Local events
o Weather forecasts
* Google applications
o Gmail
o Google local search
o Proximity, location based search (coffee shops near me)
o Access to millions of geo-located landmark and sightseeing photographs available through Google’s Panoramio picture sharing site
* Best-in-breed GPS capabilities
o Preloaded maps of North America, Eastern and Western Europe, or both
o Turn-by-turn, voice-prompted directions
o Speaks the names of the streets
o “Where am I?” feature displays your latitude and longitude coordinates, the nearest address and intersection, and the closest hospitals, police stations and gas stations.
o Find your car in an unfamiliar spot or crowded parking lot by automatically marking the position in which it was last removed from the vehicle mount.

nuvifone is based on Garmin’s proprietary OS and according to Electronista the Google applications allow it to search for local businesses, check traffic patterns and weather. Photos (or videos) taken with the built-in camera are automatically geotagged for positioning in location-based services.

Garmin hasn’t announced the price or carrier partner yet but expect details to follow shortly.