Huh, this could work out. Remember Dash? It was that the little GPS start-up company that made the innovative PND that had a monthly subscription, but also routed you around traffic issues through the magic of the cloud. You probably never saw one in person because, well, no one wants a GPS with a monthly fee. Anyway, RIM, the makers of BlackBerrys of course, just purchased the company.
Hopefully this means the two will combine forces and produce a BlackBerry with a killer navigation system. $10 says that the two companies can get something on the market before the Garmin-Asus does. They have been working for years and we still haven’t seen anything on retailer’s shelves.
Dash went nowhere because their product was awful.
I was one of the early adopters. It had the same deal breaker problems as its competitor, Telenav:
* A lot of times it would lose the data signal in places where cell signals were not very good, leaving you stranded with no way to get directions.
* It would send you on wild goose chase routes that were nowhere near as efficient as other devices by companies like Tomtom and Garmin.
* It’s bound to become useless some day when the data service is not available. My closet shelves are stacked with useless electronic devices that worked on proprietary networks that went under (Novatel Merlin, anyone?).