As far as the lawsuit goes... you never sue everyone at once. You sue each believed offender, one at a time.. this is true of real companies with real IP, and usually true even of patent trolls... unless they find it necessary to make a big new item by "suing everyone". If Pioneer wins against Garmin, they have this precedent for the next suit. If they lose, details are probably not public, so they can go after the next guy without tipping their hand. Or decide that's a bad strategy, without wasting money going after multiple companies at once.
I have an AVIC-F500... pretty nice GPS. This one is kind of a hybrid... it's removable, like most of the Tom-Toms and Garmins and all, but it can be integrated into the sound and power system. This was rather needed in my 2003 Prius, rather than the Pioneer in-dash, as it's all very non-standard. You get GPS and an MP3 player. The 5" screen also doesn't suck, and it's one of the best GPS apps I've seen (I think it's a Pioneer-customized version of iGo). Plays music and videos from any old SDHC card. And the unit cost me $180, with another $40 for the 2009 maps.
With that said, I had a problem with it last month... sent to Pioneer, no problems, no questions, they fixed it. In the meanwhile, I bought a DROID phone, and I was using Google Navigator since. I won't say Google Nav is always better than the Pioneer... it's not. But factor in "early beta" and "the navigation function is free, with the device"... a device I would have bought anyway, and I can understand why the GPS people are getting nervous and circling their wagons.
HP's Jon Rubenstein told us that his company wanted to veer in a new direction, and veer it surely did -- the HP Veer 4G will arguably be the smallest fully-functional smartphone on the market when it goes on sale May 15th.
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As far as the lawsuit goes... you never sue everyone at once. You sue each believed offender, one at a time.. this is true of real companies with real IP, and usually true even of patent trolls... unless they find it necessary to make a big new item by "suing everyone". If Pioneer wins against Garmin, they have this precedent for the next suit. If they lose, details are probably not public, so they can go after the next guy without tipping their hand. Or decide that's a bad strategy, without wasting money going after multiple companies at once.
I have an AVIC-F500... pretty nice GPS. This one is kind of a hybrid... it's removable, like most of the Tom-Toms and Garmins and all, but it can be integrated into the sound and power system. This was rather needed in my 2003 Prius, rather than the Pioneer in-dash, as it's all very non-standard. You get GPS and an MP3 player. The 5" screen also doesn't suck, and it's one of the best GPS apps I've seen (I think it's a Pioneer-customized version of iGo). Plays music and videos from any old SDHC card. And the unit cost me $180, with another $40 for the 2009 maps.
With that said, I had a problem with it last month... sent to Pioneer, no problems, no questions, they fixed it. In the meanwhile, I bought a DROID phone, and I was using Google Navigator since. I won't say Google Nav is always better than the Pioneer... it's not. But factor in "early beta" and "the navigation function is free, with the device"... a device I would have bought anyway, and I can understand why the GPS people are getting nervous and circling their wagons.