We missed this when it first hit, but it’s more than worth reporting, even late: Garmin has announced the nüvifone, a new touchscreen smartphone scheduled for release in Q3 of this year.
Electronista broke the story originally, saying that the nüvifone will compete directly with Apple’s iPhone. The device is controlled almost entirely by the 3.5″ touchscreen, which displays only “Call,” “Search,” and “View Map” on its main menu. From there, users can access a wide variety of features like web browsing, email, instant messaging, and more. GPS is very tightly integrated with the unit, allowing such features as “Where Am I?” which provides a near-instant list of the user’s latitude and longitude, nearest intersection, and nearest hospitals, police stations, and gas stations. If used with the optional car mount, which allows hands-free dialing and other features, it even marks the last known spot where it was removed from the mount to ease finding your car in crowded parking lots.
We’ll definitely be keep an eye on this phone.
The team at IntoMobile