Technology - Friday, October 30, 2009 14:03 - 0 Comments

Have Apple AAPL Garmin GRMN and TomTom TMOAF.PK Lost Their Direction

Companies Google GOOG / Apple AAPL / Garmin GRMN / TomTom TMOAF.PK

Even best friends sometimes encounter situations that cause them to walk away from each other, seemingly that is what happened with Google (GOOG) and Apple (AAPL) and it seems the breakup may have happened over the phone, be it an iPhone or Android.

Google announced their car navigation app and if truth be told, it’s a killer application, complete with (voice search, crowd sourced traffic data, Street View navigation).  Whether or not Apple saw this coming isn’t certain, but it’s clear that Google (GOOG) and Apple (AAPL) are no longer that friendly duo they once were and that their new app was taking direct aim at Garmin (GRMN), TomTom (TMOAF.PK) as well as Apple (AAPL).

When the iPhone was the new kid on the block, Google and Apple seemed like lovers on a spring day, each speaking of the other in sonnets, Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt described the relationship as akin to merging “without merging. Each company should do the absolutely best thing they can do every time.”  It was akin to “what’s mine is yours” and it didn’t seem like Google need to create a phone, merely create apps for the iPhone, but thsoe days are gone and Google Maps Navigation launched on the Android phone, not the iPhone, a clear indication that things are not the same.

Of course this is just one indication of that, and when Apple started blocking Google apps such as Google Voice and Latitude from getting on the iPhone, that spoke volumes saying we don’t like the competition.  Add to that the fact that Google apps is free and people are running in droves toward the latest and greatest new toy (SmartPhone) the Android.  And it is clear those companies Garmin (GRMN) and TomTom (TMOAF.PK) and even Apple (AAPL) cannot compete with an app that can integrate with Google’s massive search engine.

The iPhone isn’t dead by any means, nor is Google’s Android king of the hill, but there is certainly trouble in paradise.