Today seems to be a day for mobile navigation app news — WinMo, iPhone, and some Android related app-hacking news, even. Where to begin? Let’s talk about crowd-sourced traffic app Waze. The startup, which up until now was only available in Israel and the United States, has expanded to include the entire world. Now no matter if you live in North Piddle, United Kingdom or Timbuktu, Mali, you can report on and check out the local traffic conditions (although I’m guessing traffic in North Piddle may not be as problematic as it is in, say, London or Berlin).

Waze utilizes real-time data submitted by users to keep track — heh — of traffic conditions. It is available on Android, Symbian, Windows Mobile, and iPhone handsets. Says the Waze official blog (aptly titled … wait for it … By The Waze):

In our humble attempt to take over the world one traffic lane at a time, waze (sic) is proud to announce today that we’ve gone global! Wazers from all around the world are now able to use our platform to build crowdsourced maps, 100 percent from scratch. In fact, in certain countries with no base map, users will literally be building maps from scratch — paving the roads entirely themselves, as they drive.

Already, driving communities have organically formed in over 20 countries around the globe, including Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Singapore, Thailand, Kazakhstan, and Trinidad Tobago — and people have even begun map editing their regions online at world.waze.com.

Navigon Adds Traffic to Mobile Navigator

Speaking of crowd sourced, AppScout reports that Navigon, which provides its Mobile Navigator software for the iPhone in the United States, and the iPhone and WinMo, among others elsewhere, is now offering Traffic Live service  as an option for Mobile Navigator. The traffic alerts are reportedly based on real-time speed data from 1.3 million drivers, including other app users, commercial fleet operators, and other drivers with dedicated, GPS-based navigation devices, according to AppScout (which doesn’t source its info; shame on you Ziff Davis).

I can’t say for sure just who is providing the traffic service for Navigon. Digital map maker Navteq supplies map data for Mobile Navigator, among others. The company also supplies traffic data for various apps and devices, along with operating Traffic.com. I haven’t heard that Navteq’s service utilized data sourced from its own app users though. And this is all educated conjecture on my part anyway; enjoy with salt.

Anyway, AppSource says Traffic Live only works in the United States, but not Canada (which would be consistent with Navteq’s traffic offering in North America). The service costs a one-time $19.99 (no monthly fee after that), although Navigon is reportedly going to up the price to $24.99 in a month’s time.

Zoom In On Your Zoombak — On Your iPhone

Lets stick with iPhone app news for a moment longer. Zoombak, a maker of personal, assisted GPS-based tracking gizmos, has launched its own app for the iPhone. As one might expect, it enables Zoombak users to locate their tracking devices on their iPhone. The app displays the current location of the selected device on a map, along with other location data including street address, speed, direction and latitude/longitude. Zoombak users can view the location on a map, a satellite view, or a hybrid of the two.

The Zoombak app is free to download from the Apple App Store.

No Love for the First Nav App in the WinMo Store

Now lets talk about a WinMo map — but don’t stop reading iPhone fan boys; this will make you happy. MS Mobiles — and they oughtta know — reports that the first turn-by-turn navigation app in the recently-minted Winodws Mobile app store is now available. But the MS Mobiles blogger is less than impressed with the Urban Horizon app (as he is with the app store). To wit:

However it sucks on many levels. Firstly you have to download maps from the server of the software vendor, not from Microsoft. Secondly you can use this service only for one year and then you must pay again. For comparison’s purpose: for the same price one can get CoPilot Live turn-by-turn GPS navigation software for iPhone, where everything is loaded from Apple’s servers and users don’t have to pay yearly fee.

Of course you can get CoPilot Live and TomTom also for Windows Mobile, but only through sideloading — much more expensive and without app store and without automatic updates feature.

Personally, I’d much rather forego and app store, download stuff directly to a PC, sideload it, and have all the data I need locally on my phone, but that’s just me.

Want to Upgrade to Moto’s Droid and Android 2.0? Maybe You Don’t Have To

And let’s not forget Android. As you probably know, Android 2.0 recently debuted on the Moto Droid, which is being breathlessly sold by Verizon Wireless. This debut also corresponded with the rollout of the latest step in Google Global Hegemony Google Maps Navigation app, which is designed and coded for Android 2.0 phones.

But the thing is, while Apple users praise their computers and devices “because it just works,” (and there is nothing wrong with that, certainly) Android users and their ilk are more typically geeks that like to tinker (which is why they tolerate Windows, because you can tinker with it, but they naturally prefer Unix or Linux, preferably a completely open-source implementation, say, FreeBSD for example). Yes, I’m affectionately generalizing here, so don’t get your kernel twisted; feel free to complain at the next meeting). Android, it should be mentioned, is based on Linux (hence its appeal to the type of people that will do what is mentioned in the next paragraph).

So of course, even though Android 2.0 and the (An)Droid have been out less than two weeks, Android enthusiasts have already hacked their way through to an implementation of Google Maps Navigation on previous generation Android phones, such as T-Mobile’s also unimaginatively-named G1. Want to know more? Rather than reprint the wheel, I’ll just point you to the eponymous gizmo blog Gizmodo.

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