Going Mainstream - GPS Declassified: From Smart Bombs to Smartphones - page 138

and direct mail operations. 115 Consumers nevertheless purchased more than
1.3 million iPhones over the next three months, making it at&t's top- selling
phone and the fourth-best selling in the industry. 116 In July 2008 Apple launched
the iPhone 3g and a software upgrade enabling real-time gps mapping and
navigation through applications downloaded from its online App Store. Apple
soon claimed the number-two spot behind Research in Motion, maker of the
Blackberry, and smartphone revenues increased by 71 percent between July
2007 and July 2008 even as overall cellular revenues declined. 117 Analysts esti-
mated that smartphones accounted for 19 percent of all handset sales in 2008,
compared to 9 percent the year before. 118 Third-party applications for smart-
phones, including gps navigation apps from companies such as Garmin and
TomTom, proliferated. Industry watcher iSuppli counted more than three thou-
sand navigation-related apps in Apple's App Store by mid-2009 . 119 Inrix Traf-
fic, a free app introduced in August 2009, turned its users into data generators
by tracking the location and speed of their phones to create the first “crowd-
sourced” traffic reports. 120 gps capability in smartphones enabled users not
only to navigate from one point to another but also to receive notices that a
friend, favored retailer, or other point of interest was in the vicinity. The term
location- based service , or lbs, entered the mainstream lexicon, and an abi
Research analyst described the segment as experiencing “nothing short of a
gold rush.” 121
Google meanwhile promoted its Android software platform to third-party
developers. The Android market by late 2009 offered about twelve thousand
apps, compared to Apple's then roughly one hundred thousand apps. 122 With
the iPhone (still exclusive to at&t) gaining market share and luring away
existing Verizon customers, competitors fought back. In October 2009 Google
unveiled free voice-prompted, turn-by-turn navigation for Android users. For
Google, offering free navigation was a way to increase mobile search traffic;
phone manufacturers and wireless carriers saw an opportunity to sell more
phones. Motorola and Verizon immediately announced the Droid, the first
Android-based smartphone to run on the biggest U.S. wireless carrier. The
news sent shares of Garmin and TomTom tumbling as analysts considered
the implications for pnds. 123 Three months later Finland's Nokia, the world's
largest mobile phone manufacturer, began bundling free navigation with its
phones as part of a strategy to compete with Apple's iPhone. Nokia had spent
$8.1 billion the previous year acquiring digital mapmaker Navteq and had sold
about eighty-three million smartphones with gps to that point. 124 An automo-