navigon

There's some more news on great deals available today. Mehdoh is now listed as free on the Windows Phone Store, and NAVIGON (both US and European versions) is also currently on sale. It's good to see more deals being featured on the store to help push out the content that consumers wish to take full advantage of on new hardware.

A few days ago we shared that NAVIGON USA for Windows Phone 8 was available at the Windows Phone Store. Well now NAVIGON Europe has made the jump to Windows Phone 8.

The NAVIGON apps are feature rich navigation apps that includes user selected downloadable maps. This allows you to travel without depending on a data connection for your maps.  It also helps save on storage space in that you only download the maps you need.

Just as with the NAVIGON USA app, version 4.5 of NAVIGON Europe has all the features of the Windows Phone 7 version save the Text-to-Speech feature which will be added in an upcoming update.

The NAVIGON series of navigation apps for your Windows Phone was recently updated and to celebrate things, they are also on sale through October 31, 2012.

Along with the customary performance tweaks, the version 4.3 update brings route planning to both NAVIGON USA and NAVIGON Europe. It's a nice feature to allow you to plan a multi-stop trip ahead of time and avoid having to re-enter your destination after every stop.

Both versions of NAVIGON makes use of downloadable, offline maps to reduce the dependency on data while traveling. If you wander off into an area with poor reception, you won't have to worry about maps or routes being lost.  Adding route planning only enhances the navigation app's capabilities.

The Windows Phone navigation app NAVIGON Europe was recently bumped to version 4.2 and brings a few new features to the table. For those not familiar, NAVIGON is a fully functional navigation system that lets you download maps to your Windows Phone to reduce the dependency on a data connection.

As some of our readers may already know, Windows Phone allows for the execution of both managed and unmanaged code, with the latter requiring special sign off by Microsoft. (Or an unlocked phone.) It's always interesting, however, to keep track of who gets permission to publish apps onto the Marketplace with native code in place from both a security and enthusiast perspective.

Windows Phone blogger @tezawaly wrote us today, letting us know he ran a count of all the applications on the Marketplace containing a copy of the WMInteropManifest.xml file. (He did this, presumably, by downloading every single XAP and inspecting the contents of each.) This file is special in that, if present, acts as a flag to the operating system letting it know you're okay to use APIs on the phone that would otherwise be blocked. He counted 48 native applications ranging from carrier applications such as the HTC Hub to high visibility ISV applications such as NAVIGON USA.

You can check out the full app list on his blog.

Source: Nanapho.jp

A few weeks ago NAVIGON for Windows Phone was updated to version 4.1 which added the MyMaps feature to the navigation app. MyMaps allows you to download only the maps you need.  As opposed to downloading the full 1.6gb of maps.

After the update, NAVIGON dropped the price of their U.S. map version down from $49.99 to $29.99. The European version fell from 84.99€ to 59.99€. The sale ends on January 5, 2012 and if you've got some Christmas cash lying around (or a Microsoft Marketplace Gift Card) this is a great deal on a very good Windows Phone navigation app.

You can find the U.S. version of NAVIGON here and the European version of NAVIGON here at the Windows Phone Marketplace.

Thanks, Tim, for the tip!

Navigon is on sale in the Windows Phone Marketplace. For how long we're not sure but the U.S. maps version has dropped from $49.99 to $24.99 and the European version has dropped from $84.00 Euros to $72.99 Euros.

Navigon, a Garmin Company, is a navigation app for your Windows Phone that stores all your maps on your Windows Phone to avoid the need for data. The downside to all this is that the U.S. version requires 1.6GB of storage and the European version takes up 2.3GB of storage.

Navigon is a feature rich navigation app for your Windows Phone (here's our review). If you've been on the fence because of the price, now's your chance to take advantage of an unexpectant Holiday sale. Navigon is a mango app so you'll need to be running Windows Phone 7.5.

You can find Navigon U.S. here and Navigon Europe here at the Windows Phone Marketplace. Again, while we're glad to see the drop in price we have no clue as to how long the savings will last.

Thanks goes out to Naruto Fan for the tip!

Update:  Well the $24.99 price didn't last for long.  Apparently over the past hour the price has returned to $49.99.  A Black Friday special perhaps?

Even though Navigon's Windows Phone app, NAVIGON, and the NAVIGON Traffic4all app are already available over at the Marketplace, we've received official notice from Navigon on the release of these two apps. Even though the release is dated yesterday and there's not much new in the press release, there is one little blurb about pricing we thought was important enough to follow up on.

According to the press release, the $29.99 price tag on the U.S. version of NAVIGON is an introductory price. The introductory price will run until 11/15/2011 when the price will jump to $49.99. We are trying to get clarification from Navigon if the $69.99 price for the European version is discounted as well.

As we mentioned earlier, the Traffic4All is a free, ad-supported app or you can pay $1.49 to remove the ads.

We're still working on a full review of NAVIGON and should have that posted in the next day or so. We'll try to give you a better picture on how good or bad NAVIGON performs plus how it compares to a few other navigation apps that are available for your Windows Phone.

In the meantime, you can find the U.S. version of NAVIGON here in the Windows Phone Marketplace, the European version of NAVIGON here and NAVIGON Traffic4all here in the Marketplace.  You can read the full presser from Navigon after the break.

Update: Just got tipped by Antonino over at Plaffo.com that the European pricing is an introductory offer as well.  Up until 11/15/2011 the price for the European version will be 59.49 Euros.  After the 15th, the price jumps to 84.99 Euros. 

Yes, NAVIGON is having a big day today. They've released their famous GPS mapping software to the masses and we'll have our video/hands on up in a few. Until then, you can grab their ad-supported Traffic4All app in the Marketplace (or pay $1.49 for no ads).

The app is powered by INRIX, of which we already have a free version in the Marketplace. So why use Traffic4All? Dare we say it's much better than INRIX's attempt--you're getting NAVIGON's maps, INRIX's traffic info and the layout is much more smooth and easier to manage.

We really dig the forecast option, or more specifically, how it's implemented. Scrolling is also nice and smooth and the options seem top notch. Full feature list:

• List view, arranged by distance to traffic congestion, plus display of report date and reliability
• Traffic density forecasts based on data records
• Community reports
• One-click function to reveal or hide disturbances shown on the map
• Map zoom option
• Full-screen mode
• Map view in portrait and landscape format
• “Current traffic density” – icon to report incorrect route colouring
• Advertising-free version available to purchase
• Languages: German, English, French, Dutch
• Coverage: most of Europe + USA + Canada

We really like this app so far and are looking forward to putting it through some tests. Until the, pick it up here in the Marketplace.