Schlechte Nachrichten für mehr als 27 Millionen Nav4All-User: ab morgen, 01. Februar 2010 ist die app Geschichte.

Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 28-01-2010 16:30 GMT+1

Subject: Nav4All navigation shut down by Navteq

Letter to 27,625,631 Nav4All navigation customers

Dear Customers,

It is with the deepest regret that we hereby notify you that the global navigation of Nav4All and the Tracking & Tracing will go offline in 3 days. The reason for the same is that the data licence agreement with Navteq (a 100% Nokia subsidiary) was not extended, in a totally unexpected manner. It is not possible to implement data from another supplier in our Nav4All systems within the short term.

The Nav4All navigation system was developed for Navteq data. Nav4All has therefore been constrained to stop.

We greatly regret the fact that we have to suspend the operation of our service. With your help, we have developed Nav4All into a global product with 27.5 million users in 56 languages, in 5 years. This has made Nav4All the largest navigation supplier. This large number of users also has to do with the fact that Nav4All works on hundreds of different mobile telephones of many makes such as Blackberry, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, Motorola, Android, HTC, Nokia, LG, Iphone, Ipod etc.

After 5 years of testing and market development, we witnessed rapid – in fact, exponential – growth during the last two years. That growth was reported in the licence reports to Navteq. In mid-December 2009, the global coverage was extended to include the Philippines, Morocco and Kenya.

Please contact the Nav4All support desk in case you have any

questions: www.nav4all.com/support. If there is any further information from Nav4All concerning the subject of this letter, the same will be published on our website: www.nav4all.com. For reasons of privacy, Nav4All does not have the email addresses of all its customers, and we therefore request you to forward this email to the maximum extent possible, in order to ensure that everyone is informed.

Kind Regards,

Hennie J.M. Groot Koerkamp (CEO)

Nav4All BV

Keizersgracht 62-64

1015 CS Amsterdam NL

Schade, dass eine wirklich herausragende app auf diese Art kaputt gemacht wird. Und mit Erschrecken muss ich feststellen, dass der Android-Market keine ernstzunehmende Alternative bereithält:

AndNav1: beta-Status, wirkt im Groben etwas unorganisiert, provisorisch

AndNav2: instabil, Design hier und da verbesserungswürdig

MobilNavigator: nur eine 30-tägige Testversion, anschließend 39,00 EUR für D-A-CH (2 Jahre)

Tja, und dann war da noch Google Maps Navigation BETA… Bislang funktioniert dieser Dienst offiziell nur in Amerikaland. Natürlich kursieren aber schon diverse gehackte apps, die – wenn man diversen Foren Glauben schenken darf – jedoch regelmäßig durch Google gestört werden. Demzufolge kann man auch diese Option als zuverlässiges Navi derzeit noch vergessen. Im Auge sollte man es trotzdem behalten.

Ich selbst werde mir mich dann wohl mit AndNav2 zufrieden geben müssen und hoffen, dass Nav4All vielleicht ein fulminantes Comeback startet… *seufz*

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