Well, thats you, contrary to popular belief there are other people who may have a slightly different lifestyle to yourself out there. There a lot of other people who use GPS on a daily basis (seeing clients) or who travel more than just going to work and back. I use GPS every second or third day at least. Its safer using GPS than trying to drive while paging through a mapbook looking for a road. Travel to another city (I fly 5 times a month) and use a rental car and try find your way around with a map book when you are on a short schedule.

Just because you don't have the need for one, doesn't mean everyone else doesn't.

There are a lot of people who don't need more than 1GB of music, that doesn't mean the ipod only comes in 1GB, same as not everyone wants video, but it means that they have to cater for more than one market.

Well said. As for "stupid pile of shit that reads directions". You can always turn the voice off.

200 years ago, people didn't need cars. Why do you have one?

People need GPS because they have become dependent on it. Plus it's an amazing piece of technology.

Im a man I dont need GPS

I had a GPS in my car in Japan back in 1993, and I found it saved time thumbing through a street directory.

Some people may have a need of such a time saver. Postal services and couriers find them very useful. Likewise someone who needs to visit clients. Taxi services have improved somewhat using GPS as have emergency and police services.

A handheld GPS would similarly be useful for people making deliveries or visiting clients. I'm glad Australia has picked up the use of GPS, even if it was a bit slow to do so.

I remember the GPS in my car in Japan had the maps stored on DVD. Nowadays they are stored on the GPS themselves on flash memory and updated by plugging them into your Mac or PC.

Not long ago people didn't have mobile phones, or email. Look at how many businesses would slow to a crawl without them.

Thanks MissionMan for explaining to me your need for GPS. I understand why some people would need it. Most people don't drive to meet clients everyday or so, but yet I get the felling that people see GPS as a must have feature. I'm not saying it's a stupid feature. I'm just wondering why so many people feel they really need it.

Just like the 3G option, if there will be GPS in the iPhone, then there must be a button that switches it off to save battery life.

gps fantastic , wouldnt of been able to do my Tasmania road trip recently without it.
GPS in phones as of 5/2008 absolutely totally useless!!

I can see where your coming from, but i'd change the word "need" for want. The street Directory is still available but that really isn't the only point of a GPS.

GPS allows for less hassles overall. Driving to a new town or location, your really wanting the GPS to take the shortest/best route and even understanding one way streets. Thus saving time (well all like that these days). The current ones also work out tier 2 options such as, Service Stations and the like.

I remember when you needed to either print out the map and use a highlighter to mark it all out, or quickly keep checking through the Street Directory while stopped at a red light (or even pulling over sometimes).

So why not just buy a stand alone GPS, sure not a problem they do serve the purpose, but wouldn't it even be better if that service was provided on the device you carry around with you most if not all of the time?

Uh no, because:

That way there's only ONE car charger, you have GPS on you when you walk. You only have GPS using battery power when you are using it, so it's not as if people without a need for it are losing battery life. Also, Apple kick ass at GUIs. If anyone can make an intuitive interface for GPS with a touch screen, it's Apple.

BlackBerry 8707g - BlackBerry Mobile Phones - Three Australia

"$0 Monthly handset repayment on the $79 Cap with $79 minimum monthly spend over 24 months"

HTC p3600i - HTC Mobile Phones - Three Australia

"$0 Monthly handset repayment on the $49 Cap with $30 minimum monthly spend over 24 months"

Apple's business model is not to subsidise the handsets, according to everything that has been said so far. They are moving away from the single carrier lock-in, for obvious reasons, but you should still expect to pay an upfront amount for the iPhone, irrespective of the plan.

Just to add to that, i was more thinking of the following situation. For example: your over at the mates place, time to go somewhere... yeah "God knows how to get there..." O thats right, i can use the phone Honestly im only thinking of an extremely small amount of situations (as surely mind differ from others needs/wants) that i would use the feature. Most of the time i wouldn't need it, but then again i mostly likey to travel to and from work when i think about it. Its for those random times when you need a GPS that i just cant justify spending alot of money on a dedicated device.

I would probably prefer not to pay extra for a gps unit, but this whole "we survived without them 10 years ago" argument is kind of dumb.. we also survived without mobile browsing 2 years ago, portable email 5 years ago, and basically mobile phones 10 years ago, the point is it makes life easier in another way, so why not? The thing with the iphone is that u already have a fully fledged map system, and anyone that can't work out what street they are on and what suburb they are in and punch it in is really struggling, but I guess it's handy.

well wouldn't it be best to have cheaper version without GPS, and a flagship model with all the bells and whistles?