Will iPhone TomTom Car Kit enhance Waze performance?

Hearing some interesting things about the TomTom Car Kit now that the TomTom app has hit the App store ($99). Waze will soon have more update to maps and its free, plus a ton of other advantages over the traditional GPS conglomerates. e.g: free map updates, crowdsourced traffic/events. My point is that the TomTom App should not (and I’m sure does not) scare Waze. Nor should Google for that matter… but the TomTom Car Kit has peaked my interest. There just doesnt seem to be that much info about it.

The TomTom Car Kit for iPhone is designed to enhance the iPhone’s GPS signal as well as allow calls/music etc integrate into your vehicle a little more seamlessly. It charges the phone, has place to plug into your Aux input on the stereo (I think??) and I think its supposed to do a louder speakerphone as well for hands free calling. All good things to have for your phone/gps in the car.

Why do/should we care? Well… the question is “Will it work with other GPS apps?” TomTom’s marketing people say… Yes!

http://www.theiphoneblog.com/2009/08/17/tomtom-car-kit-compatible-ipod-touch-gps-apps/

According to early vendor reports, the kit might be as much as $200 - that’s a little steep! Should see more soon. Expected to release “later this summer” - aren’t we getting near the end of summer already?!

Any thoughts? Is it worth it? The Android phones seems to have much better GPS capabilities than the iPhone out of the box. Could this level the playing field in the car? If the price is right, I might consider buying the TomTom Car Kit and using it with Waze!

TomTom’s car kit will be at least $100 and maybe $200. I bought a nice Kensington windshield mount for $25 on eBay. Maybe someone else will develop a generic iPhone mount that does what TomTom’s mount does…GPS enhancement and whatever else.

Right now (from my understanding) this is the only official external GPS that iphone will allow to connect. [That is, an iphone that is not jailbroken].
Perhaps in the near future an update will allow BT-GPS connections, which will allow using any external antenna ($40 will get you a very good one). That sounds like an easier solution, plus you could keep and use the antenna with any other device in the future (something you can’t do with the tomtom car kit).

Good thinkin’