What's that, you're still holding your breath waiting for the G60 release? Breathe, child, breathe, it's still going to be a little while before you can get your nav on with this celly. Obviously it didn't make the first half of the year as initially planned, but the Garmin-Asus partnership is now saying that the phone will still arrive at its retail destination before 2010, with some places seeing it in just two months time. Why the delays? Apparently its custom flavor of Linux is at least part of the problem, leading the corporate couple's marriage counselors to suggest a move to Android for all future, non-WinMo handsets -- devices that, contrary to earlier reports, will also launch before the end of the year. So, G60 in August, or potentially even hotter Android nav phone a few months later? Decisions, decisions.

Lazarus be praised! The last time we heard about ASUS' P565 was back in February, when we mourned its sad and supposed demise. Turns out that's not the case, as we've now got a hands-on with the GPS / PDA phone from Polish site ASUSPDA, who claims (at least via machine translation) that it's been on sale for several months. The plethora of product / unboxing / interface pics look mighty legit, and as for the impressions, the reviewer seems very quite fond of it. Compliments are given for its general performance and design, though he does note the Glide interface isn't as seamless as you'd expect with a 816MHz processor inside. If you're interested in finding out for yourself, it looks like you can order the GSM / WCDMA-enabled device from Qbit for around $566.

[Thanks, Jackob]

Read - Unboxing
Read - Product page

Following its competitors down the path of familial omniscience, AT&T has rolled out its aptly-named FamilyMap service for tracking signed-up phones from afar. Interestingly, any AT&T phone is supported -- if you're looking to track one that doesn't have GPS / AGPS, it simply falls back to less-accurate techniques like tower triangulation, which is better than nothing. Besides simply scouting your kiddies (or spouse, or whomever else agrees to your oversight) on a map, you can do cooler things like set up automatic emails or text messages to get location updates, track a swiped phone, and more. Sadly, your ability to spy is limited by the fact that AT&T periodically sends tracked phones text messages reminding them they've got Big Brother on their tail, but it's better than nothing. The first 30 days are free to try, then you're looking at $9.99 a month for up to two phones or $14.99 for up to five.

[Via Boy Genius Report]

It's not quite a flood, but there's been a steady trickle of Pre news out of CTIA this week, and the latest is this video demo of the Sprint Navigation app. It's pretty familiar stuff if you've ever used the carrier's TeleNav-powered navigation on a device like the Samsung Instinct, but does have a nice coat of webOS interface sheen to it, and let's face it -- we'll take all the Pre demos we can get. Video after the break.

This one's pretty light on specifics at the moment, but it looks like manufacturing giant ITT Corp is none too happy with Verizon and a whole host of cellphone manufacturers including the likes of Motorola, Nokia, LG, and Kyocera, and it's now gone so far as to sue the whole lot over alleged patent infringement. Apparently, ITT thinks that the group of companies all violated one of its GPS patents that relates to position information being transmitted in urban areas with line-of-sight obstructions. As a result of that alleged wrong doing, ITT says it has been "irreparably harmed," and that it "has suffered, and will continue to suffer substantial damages." To remedy that situation, ITT is asking for a jury trial, unspecified royalties, and a permanent injunction against all of the defendants, although it is being kind enough to allow for an exemption for any activities necessary to support 911 emergency functions.

[Thanks, Joel]

While the world waits for a tried-and-true navigation app from Apple, XRoad is taking advantage of the situation by offering up its G-Map app in the interim. Kicking Tires decided to take the new software for a spin, and while the map quality took a pretty harsh beating, the overall offering was highly praised. More specifically, not every street name was present during testing, meaning that you had to rely implicitly on the turn-by-turn instructions if you weren't familiar with your surroundings. Outside of that, however, it seemed to nail all the important points. Accuracy, routing, ease of use and design were all smiled upon, and it seems critics gave the street name snafu a bit of a break with the hope of future updates solving the issues. If you're still a touch hesitant to drop your hard-earned cash, give that read link a gentle tap.

[Thanks, Ronald]

The GPS circuitry in the iPhone 3G could be used to do more -- a lot more, in fact -- than it currently does, and it looks like Apple might have an eye on an angle most people wouldn't have considered (in other words, something other than turn-by-turn). Digging through iPhoto '09's innermost sanctums has apparently revealed references to some sort of asynchronous geotagging capability, whereby selecting locations from an app on the phone (or iPod touch, as the case may be) could be transferred directly to iPhoto and associated with events -- perfect for shooting with, say, a real camera while toting your phone in your pocket. Of course, the capability is purely vestigial for now -- no announcement has been made, and there's no way for users to access this directly -- so Apple could've spiked it or has it queued up for a future firmware update. Time will tell.

[Via iLounge and Ars Technica]

We were skeptical when Verizon said it was going to start unlocking the GPS in its phones, and then Pearl and Curve users saw support in BlackBerry Maps. Now Google Maps for the Storm has been updated to allow access to the internal GPS -- something that probably couldn't be done without Big Red's blessing. Oddly, Pearl and Curve users are still forced to rely on triangulation to get their Latitude on, but at this point, we'll really take whatever we can get. Either way, this sure looks like progress, and as long as this continues we'll go ahead and cut the carrier some slack. Storm users feel free to hit the read link and stick it to the man while making the most of your device as the BlackBerry gods intended.

[Thanks, Ryan]

As if the addition of TeleNav GPS to the T-Mobile G1 wasn't evidence enough, Google is totally into exploiting the GPS capabilities of its Android-based handsets. First up is My Tracks, which quite simply "records tracks of outdoor activities using the phone's built-in GPS." From there, it shows the data points on a map and presents live statistics (which even includes an elevation profile); obviously, sharing said routes is a lesson in simplicity thanks to Google Maps and Google Docs. Next up are location-based Gmail signatures, which oddly enough, use your IP address in order to append a current location to your sent emails. Granted, this approach is better than nothing, but there's certainly the chance of it missing your real whereabouts by a town or three. At any rate, feel free to dig into both in the read links below.

Read - Google My Tracks
Read - Location-based Gmail signatures

For those less interested in QWERTY keyboards and more inclined for something navigation-centric, Nokia's announced the 6710 Navigator slider and 6720 classic handset. Both phones dedicated GPS service with real time drive-and-walk navigation, and full regional maps. Outside of that, you've got a 5 megapixel camera to capture the memory of our adventure. The 6720 is coming out second quarter of this year for 245 euros, while the 6710 Navigator will be popping in third quarter for 300 euros.

Update: More details from the fact sheets. The 6720 classic's got a 2.2-inch TFT QVGA, music player with support for MP3, AAC and WMA, FM tuner, and a dual-LED flash. Standby time is 20.5 days and talk time is 5 / 8.5 hours for 3G and GSM, respectively. The 6710 Navigator's sporting 2.6-inch outdoor optimized QVGA with ambient light detector, support up to 16GB microSD, 18.5 day standby time and 4.5 / 7.5 hour talk time for 3G and GSM, respectively. Both handsets feature built-in A-GPS and Nokia Maps 3.0, a web browser, FM Tuner, and Carl Zeiss optics for the 5MP camera.

It's not that hybrid GPS systems are all that new, it's just that most are working totally under the radar. Skyhook's hoping to get its rendition out in the open a tad more via a new partnership with Texas Instruments. The company's XPS hybrid positioning system is now cleared for integration within TI's NaviLink and WiLink mobile solutions, though there's no mention made of who all is drooling to get this into their phones. In short, Skyhook's XPS works by detecting WiFi hotspots, raw GPS readings and cellular IDs, and then comparing that information against a known database of geo-located points. In theory, this stuff could totally amp up the location abilities of most any handset, but in reality, we wouldn't be surprised to see it get swept away and forgotten just like the eerily similar announcement between Skyhook and Broadcom. Full release is after the break.