MacVroom

Our buddies over at RouteBuddy Ltd. have just released an major upgrade to RouteBuddy. Here’s what they have to say about the 1.3 update…

RouteBuddy Ltd is pleased to announce the release of RouteBuddy 1.3, a major update to their powerful GPS mapping program for Mac OS X.

RouteBuddy provides native Mac OS X support for Garmin and NMEA GPS devices, and allows users to manage and display their GPS data using high-precision vector-based road maps.

This release provides turn-by-turn routing, and visual navigation to waypoints or points of interest. Navigation support includes off-route recovery, and spoken turn instructions using Mac OS X’s built-in speech synthesis.

Route information now includes turn instructions, fractional miles, and the display of road names on mouse hover.

RouteBuddy 1.3 is available immediately, and a free demo can be downloaded from http://www.routebuddy.com/download/

The RouteBuddy Application costs US$99.50, and requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later. Maps are available for a number of different countries, priced from US$39.50.

Full details are available on their website.

German magazine Focus is claiming that Apple is working with Mercedes on a car navigation and sound system that will be introduced in 2009.

The system is reported to include navigation, communication and maintenance. Mercedes will exclusively offer the new Apple system for six months (presumably followed by other auto manufacturers). The article also mentions the possibility of Google maps being the source of navigation data.

You can read a translated version of the article here.

While this story is primarily a rumor at this point, it is easy to see how Apple could use technologies already available in current products, like the Mac mini, iPod and AppleTV, to build such a system.

The new GPS-enabled mapping application, that we mentioned a couple days ago is now available.

RouteBuddy is a GPS mapping application for OS X. All the essential functions of your GPS device are supported; all you need is a Mac, a GPS, and of course RouteBuddy.

Features include:

• Downloading and Uploading Waypoint, Route and Track data
• Searching Map data with FastSearch
• Recording live GPS data and tracking your route
• Connect multiple GPS devices to your Mac
• Open several RouteBuddy Map pages at once
• Viewing and Printing full-screen maps
• Smooth Synching of your data with your GPS device
• Buying Road mapping for Worldwide countries
• Exchanging RouteBuddy map data with other users
• Harnessing the power of Google Earth and Google Maps from within RouteBuddy
• Share Geocache and other location data
• Import Geotagged URLs from the major online map services
• Add useful Meta Data to your Maps and Waypoints
• Post RouteBuddy URLs online to share with other users

RouteBuddy is compatible with USGlobalSat GPS devices, Garmin USB GPS devices and also supports standard NMEA communication.

A fully functioning watermarked demo is available on their site. RouteBuddy retails for $99.50 and maps range from $39.50 to $69.50.

Full details are available on their website.

It looks like us Mac users are finally getting a robust GPS-enabled navigation solution for our Mac’d rides! The new application is called RouteBuddy and has many of the features that you would expect from a navigation application like live tracking of GPS data, instant recognition of GPS devices, and the personalization of waypoints with notes and custom icons.

RouteBuddy also imports GoogleMaps and Yahoo Maps GeoTagged URLs as well as instantly viewing your location in Google Earth or Google Maps.

RouteBuddy was specifically built for the Mac and OS X by a team of Macheads, who were frustrated with the lack of a decent GPS solution and decided build their own.

The application is due to launch next week and you can currently check out their teaser website (which will be continually updated up until launch) to see what cool features are in store.

Update: Now Available!

MacVroom applauds the RouteBuddy team for taking the initiative to fill this much needed segment of the Mac market and can’t wait to get our hands on a copy of the application. We will have a full review as soon as the application is available.

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MacVroom had a chance to chat with the folks at Garmin and are happy to hear that Mac compatibility will be phased into their entire product line. This includes their GPS sensors for laptops, so we may finally get a decent GPS solution for our Mac’d rides! Both the GPS 10 and GPS 18 Deluxe will come with a Mac compatible version of their nRoute application that provides turn-by-turn directions, voice prompts, points of interest lookup and detailed mapping. By the end of 2006, Garmin intends to have made all its popular hardware and software applications Mac OS X compatible.

You can read the full press release here.

For those interested in installing Apple’s Front Row in their Mac’d ride, there is an excellent post over at AndrewEscobar.com that details how to install it on any Mac running 10.4.3.

The post includes a detailed installation guide along with links to all the software needed to get everything installed. Hopefully, Apple will make Front Row officially available for all Mac users to install on their machines, but for now, this work-around should do the job.

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Team Banzai, the creators of ‘Dora‘, the fully autonomous vehicle driven by Mac OS X (and three Mac minis), have been busy preparing for the upcoming DARPA Grand Challenge race. But they still had time to arrange a public demonstration of Dora’s driving capabilities and innovate a new RSS widget to get the news out.

This special “Drivers invited” event, to be held on Sep 10 at Herman Cook Volkswagen in So California, will involve a multi-camera iChat video conference with the Apple Store in San Francisco to let Bay Area fans get a chance to see inside Dora and ask questions of the Team Banzai scientists.

The widget they released, dBlogger, is itself a self-driving RSS reader that uses additional XML tags to let bloggers enhanced their postings by associating images with text, location mapping, and temperature info.

It’s part slideshow viewer and part news reader, but mostly it’s a great way to tell a story by surrounding your pictures with all the important elements - who, what, where, when.

Nice job Team Banzai - this widget rocks!

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It looks like our in-car GPS dreams may finally come true. MacVroom recently spoke with Directions Ltd., creators of the Navigator GPS navigation software, and they are planning on releasing a Macintosh version this fall. Navigator is a robust in-car navigation package with voice guidance, detailed street mapping, and enhanced turn-by-turn directions. The Macintosh version will contain the same functionality as the current PC version and will support NMEA compatible Bluetooth and USB GPS receivers. Navigator currently supports map data for Europe, Great Britain and Ireland with US mapping support coming soon. Complete feature specs are available on their website.

Note: The final Mac version of Navigator my differ from the specs and images in this article.

We are really excited about Navigator coming to the Mac platform. The current GPS options available for the Mac are pretty bad. I know many of us can’t wait say “good riddance” to Route 66.

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There’s a new mobile media software in town and it really looks promising. The C-Car Project is a new Macintosh application specifically designed for in-car use to easily control your music, movies and pictures.

Benjamin, the sole developer of this program, has been working on the CCarProject application for a couple months now and the current alpha version is coming along nicely. The programs UI is very polished and has been well thought out, utilizing large controls that are easy to access via a touch-screen LCD. Currently, music playback is the only functional part of the application, but future development will encompass movie playback and picture viewing as well.

You can download the latest build of CCarProject here. Keep in mind that this is still early in its development stage. The developer asks that users submit any bugs via his ticketing system.

We think this application has great potential and thank Benjamin for his continued hard work on this project.

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Wouldn’t it be great if you could navigate your iTunes music library in your Mac’d ride without looking at the display? Well now you can! With Valencio Productions SpeakTunes, controlling your music collection just got easier. Utilizing Mac OS X’s built-in voice capabilities, SpeakTunes provides spoken feedback to navigate playlists, browse music collections and change various playback settings. You can simply use the arrow keys to navigate and control the playback of your tunes (there is also support for using the Keyspan Digital Media Remote).

This piece of software is an excellent solution for in-car music listening! Download a fully functional copy here. Registration is $15.

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