iPod Says: Turn Left on Mulberry St.

I was thinking yesterday about how Apple could continue to improve and expand the iPod. Sure, we've talked about it becoming a piece of your entertainment center, and about it being used as an exercise aide, a subway system atlas, and as an e-book reader.

This is all fine and good and I continue to be impressed with the many different uses people are finding for their iPods. But, what if it could be better? What if your color-screen iPod video could also be a GPS unit? Imagine being able to use your iPod to navigate around cities and strange countries. The high quality color screen is already there, as is a decent interface. Apple already has their iTunes Store for synchronizing music and videos to an iPod. I don't see why it couldn't also be used to synchronize maps, directions, and travel/tourist site-seeing information. Who needs an expensive GPS navigation system for their car if they can get the same or similar functionality with a GPS-equipped iPod? And the beauty is that it wouldn't need to be tied to your car; you could detach it and take it with you.

It's true that I don't know a huge amount about handheld GPS systems, and this is certainly just my crazy speculation, but I don't see why this couldn't be done (maybe someone can tell me why it wouldn't be possible). Apple could include a GPS chip and receiver in each high-end iPod and then users could purchase maps and other information from the iTunes Store. It would certainly increase the manufacturing and therefore sale price of the iPod, but I'd buy one for the increased functionality. I can think of many ways in which I'd use a GPS iPod.

People are already putting Google Maps images on their iPods. Isn't this the next logical step?