Blackberry on Sprint gets GPS

By Vivek | January 14th, 2007 at 01:40 pm ET         

While Sprint works on its costly WiMax bet, lets look at a GPS application released last week. MapQuest in collaboration with Sprint has launched MapQuest Mobile v2.5 that among other things also acts a GPS Navigation system. Available on Blackberry phones from Sprint and Nextel, MapQuest mobile application provides features like voice enabled turn-by-turn directions, and the ability to receive phone calls without interrupting your navigation. Sprint/MapQuest is giving a free 90 day trial and will charge $9.95 /month after that. Since I am not on Sprint network, I dug out user review for the Sprint/MapQuest service that seems to give a favorable review.

From the pricing perspective after shelling out $39.99/month for Blackberry data plan, giving another 10 bucks doesn’t make sense. Imagine paying extra $10 every month on your DSL for your using MapQuest or Google Maps on your PC. Not sure for how long  these strategies from mobile operators are going to continue. Can’t they for once try giving one of these services for free? I pretty sure Sprint can get a trend to reverse in its user base numbers.

Aside from that, someday I plan to dig out more details why product pricing in mobile industry always tend to round in 10s(voice calling $40/50/60/70…., data plan $40, GPS $10,….).

Links:
MapQuest Navigator
Review