I don't think cell phones are going to take that much from the PND market. The screen is so tiny, and even if you get past that, you need a mount. Then there is the speaker quality. And despite rumors of the iPhone, we still don't have touch screen interfaces on our phones.
There's plenty of room for both to capture a pretty good market share, but for the time being, if you want functionality, go with a PND. If you only need it a few times a year though, maybe a cell phone solution is right for you.
Rich:
Your observation about the tiny screen is very valid. I've got a Palm Treo, which I presume is one of the devices with the "bigger, brighter, screens" the article has in mind. Trying to navigate using a screen-sized map is difficult, if not dangerous.
However, a small screen size becomes much less of an issue with turn-by-turn instructions. If you had a smartphone with spoken turn-by-turn instructions, the small screen size wouldn't matter much.
Also, look at the history of the cell phone makers. They've encroached on the markets of many other electronic device makers, such as digital cameras and MP3 players. There's no question the GPS navigation market is their next target. How well they compete is yet to be seen.
Personally, I'm not as down on the future of stand alone PNDs as the writer of the article. But I definitely think that a few years from now, the folks at Garmin and TomTom are going to look back at 2006-2007 as the good old days.
BTW, I enjoy your blog.
Commenting by HaloScan
