Cringely says Adobe, I’d rather see Garmin
May 3rd, 2008I love reading Robert X. Cringely’s articles. Always have. He’s definitely one of my favorite writers. In his most recent posting he states that Apple appears to be looking to unload its Pro applications in preparation to clear the way to acquire Adobe. Interesting idea, but I’m not sure I agree as Apple’s Pro apps are some of the tops in the industry and Apple has made acquisitions that sure up that side of the business. It might be nice for Apple if they controlled Flash, but I’m not sure any of that affects me much as a consumer. Plus, those Pro apps only run on OS X, not Windows. That may come in to play with the company that would want to acquire such applications.
While listening to my weekly fix of MacBreak Weekly, the topic of GPS came up and I was happy to hear that some of the folks on the show feel the same way that I do about the Garmin Nuvi GPS - it’s an excellent product. So that got me thinking. I don’t care about an Adobe acquisition as much as I would like to see Apple acquire Garmin. I have used Magellan, Tom Tom, and Garmin GPS systems in my car and I have always felt the Garmin was the best. I have the Nuvi 350, which fits easily in a pocket and takes us through turn by turn directions. I like the interface better and I definitely like the maps better. I’ve always found the Garmin to be very accurate as well.
Whether or not the rumors are true about the 3G iPhone having built in GPS, I think it is a safe assumption to believe it will be in there some day. It’s just the way most phones are headed. Nothing revolutionary, just evolutionary. Many already have GPS included. So why not take the best GPS technology and marry it with one of the best phones out there? If not an outright acquisition, at least license the Garmin technology for the GPS solution that Apple uses?
If I remember correctly, I believe that even Garmin is working on a phone. That could be an interesting product depending on how well they implement it and its final size, weight, and especially battery life, but Apple has already set the bar pretty high with the iPhone, so Garmin will have its work cut out for it.
So Apple, you know what you have to do; acquire Garmin, kill the Garmin phone, integrate Garmin’s GPS technology in the iPhone, wrap your interface around all that tech, and price it aggressively. Oh, and figure out how to achieve decent battery life. Easy, right? So go get started already - I’ll be over here waiting with my credit card.