Considering Android is getting on in age, it’s surprising it hasn’t been featured on more “miscellaneous” devices. Phones and tablets, sure, but we haven’t seen many, say, DVD players or PMPs using the OS. And certainly not GPS devices, whose proprietary libraries and interfaces were developed at great cost, leading the companies that made them working desperately to squeeze every last penny out of them. But perhaps we’re about to see that change.
GPS maker Holux and sporting map app company SatSki have put out the All Sports GPS, a handset-like unit that has multiple sports-related mapping tools, lots of live maps (Google of course, OVI, OpenStreetMap, and more), and a location and distance-focused interface. Average speed, altitude changes, all that stuff.
It also has Facebook and Twitter baked right in, so you can tell all your friends your coordinates. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to have access to other Google services like GMail or the market, though there is a sub-market called the All Sports App Market that probably will have a few random useful apps.
Sure, it’s not a breakthrough device, but it’s rugged, hackable, and full of location-y goodness. I doubt this is the last one of these devices we’ll be seeing. Garmin and the rest can only fight for so long before they too are assimilated.
No availability or pricing is available right now — nor specs or anything really, let’s hope this thing exists.
[via Gizmag]