Boy, TomTom sure has chosen the worst possible time to release its Car Kit for iPhone, and to make matters worse, its decision to not include the iPhone app is now set in stone. That’s right, the hardware alone will set you back the cost of a TomTom ONE nowadays, and the $99.95 app works on the iPhone 3G and 3GS without it. So here’s the question: is the car kit worth the extra $119.95? To find out, we got hold of a review unit for a sunny road trip around London. Surprisingly, the car kit uses Bluetooth to connect the GPS receiver to the iPhone, even though there’s a dock connector for charging. Bluetooth connectivity does have its advantages: according to TomTom it can work as a generic Bluetooth GPS Read the full story

Popularity: 2% [?]

People bitching about TomTom’s $100 iPhone navigation app can either a) bitch louder or b) download MotionX GPS Drive by Fullpower. It’s $3 per month or $25 per year, and it works just fine.

I am not going to tell you this is the best turn-by-turn road navigation app in the world. The designers made some funny UI choices, there’s no multi-destination or point-on-map routing, it doesn’t have text-to-speech, and it only runs in portrait mode, taking up awkward space on my dashboard. Still, there’s almost no reason not to get it.

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Popularity: 2% [?]

With CoPilot Live North America [$34.99 - iTunes link] The march of GPS Turn-by-turn apps continued. (See the App Review master list, above, for reviews of AT&T Navigator, Navigon Mobile Navigator, iGo My Way, and Sygic Mobile Maps). In the interest of full disclosure, I received a promo code to review this app.

GPS Turn-by-turn apps all want to achieve the same goal – become the ultimate navigation assistant to

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Popularity: 3% [?]

We’ve all seen those mini cellphone rechargers at airports, but Duracell has released a line of rechargeable pocket chargers that can refill any USB-compatible device (like iPhones) through compatibility with your own adapters. And our favorite model is cheap.

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Popularity: 2% [?]

The iHome iP1 is, unquestionably, iHome’s best attempt at building a quality iPod dock yet. But I shudder to think it’s a $300 machine. And if you care to know why, read on in my somewhat unconventional, completely self-indulgent review.

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Popularity: 2% [?]

I’m happy to report that the leading car navigation apps for the iPhone work surprisingly well. Not only that, but for the next week, there’s a clear choice for best app.

Until August 31st, Navigon MobileNavigator will cost $70. In my testing, it competed neck and neck with the $100 TomTom, so for the next eight days, it’s the best value among the top contenders. But when they’re both selling for $100, that TomTom is going to look a lot more tempting. The third app I tested is TeleNav’s AT&T Navigator. It’s certainly worthy, and has some connected capability that the other two apps here don’t, but in the end, the economics are wrong: At $10 per month, it could become frightfully expensive, with no significant added value.

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Popularity: 2% [?]