Gallery: From Hand-Cranked Maps to the Cloud: Charting the History of In-Car Navigation
0101a-nav-hist
For those lacking an internal compass in the early days of automobiles, getting from point A to point B proved a bit tricky. Roadways were in their infancy, highways were still decades away and with no standardization of road signs and markings, anyone without a solid sense of direction routinely found themselves at a dead-end or off the beaten path. Not that much has changed in the last 100 years, with drivers routinely (and inexplicably) following their navigation systems into houses, piers and occasionally a large body of water. It didn’t take long for budding in-car cartographers to see the need for maps in vehicles, and what started with folded maps shoved in the glove box turned into a multi-billion-dollar industry. But it all started with the Iter Avto.
0201b-nav-hist
__Rolled, Not Folded__ From the time we first got behind the wheel, entrepreneurs hoping to improve on the paper map came up with navigation gadgets to tell us how to get where we’re going. The Iter Avto, one of the first dedicated car navigation systems, didn’t stray too far from the folded map. Instead it consisted of a console affixed to the dash, with a glass porthole for viewing the hand-scrolled maps located inside. And you think your smartphone navigation app is distracting... *Image: Iter Avto*
Roger Ressmeyer03rr018248
__Back to Analog__ The first move from paper maps to location data stored on portable media was with an aftermarket system called Etak that debuted in the mid-1980s. It read mapping data stored on a cassette drive, with each tape covering a section of a city. Navigating around Los Angeles required three to four tapes, and if you left the cassettes in the car on a particularly hot day you were out of luck getting to your next destination. Etak also relied on dead reckoning instead of GPS to find its way, and included a monochromatic screen that moved as the car drove along. *Photo: Roger Ressmeyer/CORBIS*
0403a-nav-hist
__CD Storage__ Alpine introduced one of the first navigation systems that used GPS, and stored maps and the operating system on CDs. Instead of several cassettes for each city, you only had to buy a disc for a multistate region of the U.S., and change them as you drove from one to another on a long road trip. The NVA-N751A CD-ROM drive was separate from a CVA-1005 head unit, which had a slide-out screen that showed a color map. And it used a kludgy remote that was larger than most modern mobile phones to input characters for a destination address. One. Slow. Character. At. A. Time. *Photo by Alpine Electronics*
0504-garmin-streetpilot
__Navigation Goes Portable__ Early in-dash navigation systems from both the aftermarket and car companies were too expensive for most drivers. While the first portables – like this Garmin StreetPilot that retailed for more than $600 when it debuted in 1998 – were a bit less expensive, unlike in-dash systems, you could at least carry it one from car to another. But you had to make sure you took it with because the tell-tale suction cup smudge on the windshield made you an easy mark for thieves. *Photo by Garmin*
0606-nav-hist
__If You Can’t Beat ‘Em…__ As portable navigation systems became popular and less expensive, sales of in-dash aftermarket systems plummeted. So Alpine had the idea of not only offering a portable nav unit, the Blackbird PMD-B200, but also a car stereo head unit that it could dock inside, allowing it to use the in-dash system’s larger screen and controls. But at $750 for the Blackbird plus $1,000 for the IVA-W250 docking station/head unit, drivers could buy a portable for each of their vehicles at the same price. Unsurprisingly, the concept never really got off the ground. *Photo by Alpine Electronics*
0707-nav-hist
__Hard-Drive, Hard Updating__ The advent of hard-drive navigation systems meant there was no longer a need for clunky disks – maps were simply built in. Aftermarket units like this Pioneer AVIC-Z1 and OEM nav systems had also begun to offer features such as lane guidance, traffic info and Bluetooth connectivity. But even though HD-based systems could be more convenient – and a bit faster to load maps and destinations – they proved to be a massive hassle to update. *Photo by Pioneer Electronics*
0809-nav-hist
__Card Swap__ Switching out CD- or DVD-ROMs or updating a hard disk is a pain, but doing it via an SD card can be much easier – and less expensive in some cases. Adding navigation to the MyFord Touch system via an SD card that contains mapping data for the U.S. and Canada cost $795, which also includes features such as Sirius Travel Link, a Gracenote music database and Navteq maps. But be careful not to lose the card since a replacement cost $295. And it won’t work in other similarly equipped Ford vehicles. *Photo by Ford*
0908-nav-hist
__Phone Home__ Before smartphone nav apps there was mobile phone navigation like AT&T Navigator on early BlackBerrys. It didn’t have the deep feature set of today’s nav apps – or even the in-dash navigation systems of the day. But at $9.95 a month, it was considerably less expensive than buying an in-dash navigation system or the still pricey portables at the time. *Photo by Telenav*
10010-nav-hist
__Apps to Go__ If inexpensive portable nav units made in-dash systems much less attractive, then smartphone navigation have made portables nearly obsolete. With navigation on a device you always have with you, there’s no longer a reason to carry around another (and larger) piece of gear. And not only are nav apps less expensive, some of them are free and offer many of the features you can get on in-dash and portable systems. And some you can’t, like live search and social networking. *Photo by Navigon*
11011-nav-hist
__Down to Earth__ With in-dash nav systems becoming archaic, automakers are adding features like gas-price info and integrated search to keep them relevant – and selling. That may be why Audi added Google Earth capability to its navigation system, allowing a driver to get the highest level of detail a digital map can offer. That is, if they want to pay extra for an Audi Premium Plus model with the MMI Plus navigation system, and another $15 to $30 a month in data charges. *Photo by Audi*
12012a-nav-hist
__Point the Way__ Eventually, we won’t have to drive. The task will be left to computer, sensors and networks. But we’ll still need to know where to go and we’ll have more time to explore what’s along the way. That’s the glimpse of the future that Mercedes-Benz provided at CES 2012 with its Dynamic & Intuitive Control Experience (DICE concept), which showed a gesture-controlled infotainment system with nav functions that act as a tour guide, showing information on landmarks and reviews of hotels and other services. *Photo by Mercedes-Benz*
