That $99.99 one-off price isn't cheap considering dedicated GPS units can cost less, and here you're only paying for the software. Worse still, rival iPhone app CoPilot Live only costs $34.99, and it too provides 3D views, and spoken turn-by-turn instructions. Thankfully, neither make you pay an AT&T TeleNav-style monthly subscription.

Update: We now know the TomTom car adapter kit will work with the iPod Touch, but haven't confirmed its U.S. availability and pricing.

[TomTom Website | TomTom iTunes Link]

Application Description
For iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS

Tap and go: Using iPhones innovative technology, the TomTom app lets you tap your way from A to B – putting you in touch with all the best routes. Scroll through the menu, or pinch to zoom in and out on a map using the iPhone's multi-touch display.

Go your own way: Why follow the rest See your route, your way. Simply rotate from portrait to landscape to get an easier view of the road ahead.
Meet up with friend: Find an entry in your iPhone contacts list, and the TomTom app will find the way there. It's that simple.

Find a place to eat: Thinking of stopping for lunch on the way? Choose a restaurant, call to reserve your table, then find your way there-the TomTom app does it all.

The smartest routes: Is the shortest route really the fastest? TomTom IQ Routes will always calculate the smartest, most efficient route-saving you time, fuel and money. Only IQ Routes uses the driving experiences of millions of drivers to work out your route based on actual road speed date.

The world at your fingertips: Always be prepared for what's around the corner. The TomTom app comes with an up-to-date, detailed map-and you can add worldwide locations to suit you.
You can also make the most of your navigation experience with the TomTom car kit for iPhone. Check it on iphone.tomtom.com.

Map coverage statistics:
Detailed map seamlessely covers in the US and Canada with IQ Routes data for faster routing.

Countries fully covered (99.9%): the US (all states including Hawaii and Alaska) and Canada (all provinces) and Puerto Rico.

Languages: English, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish.

Requirements: Compatible with iPhone. Requires iPhone OS 3.0 or later.

This device came to fruition because of EUREKA, an EU research agency that brought together Merck, a power player in the chemicals industry, AkzoNobel, one of the world's biggest paint producers, and BYK-Gardner, a firm that makes quality control equipment. Together, they were able to produce the BYK-mac, which has a database of more than 100,000 colors to work with.

The device has a spectrometer that not only analyzes color, but also can pick apart the texture of any paint. Texture is referred to as paint components that affect the appearance, but not necessarily the color—most of the time these are the glittery or sparkle effects in the paint, which can change the appearance of a paint job depending on what angle you view it at. All these colors and textures in the database of the BYK-mac have mathematical values attached to them, and fiddles around with all these different colors until it can match what it reads in the spectrometer perfectly.

The Economist also writes that paint matching is much more difficult these days because the complexity of how car paint is made and how it's applied has increased significantly. Even using a stock paint, applying paint in the wrong direction can make it look mismatched. In any case, there's no mention of when this will leak into the public sector, but seeing as they have a working prototype, I'd assume we'd see it sooner rather than later. [The Economist]

I had it charging a Sony Ericsson by USB cable, and also powering up the monster 85 watt MacBook Pro powerbrick while both devices were active. But not at the same time. The USB cable didn't want to charge the phone while the MacBook was gulping down juice. The inverter also hummed away, like an overhanging power line ready to zap a pigeon. The solution? I charged the USB device from my laptop. I'm sure the USB wouldn't flake out if I'd used a less demanding AC device. (Not a space heater.) Bonus—it's a three-pronged adapter.

The manual does a good job of outlining the dangers of using your car battery for this sort of thing. They recommend for every three hours of use, starting your car and running the engine 20 minutes.

I give this thing a thumbs-up at $40 from Think Geek. – Brian Lam

[ThinkGeek]