This is something I posted on pocketnow.com... 

Welcome Adam - thanks for the link to your article. Linking the calendar to the navigation system sounds like a good idea. I tend to shy away from voice control as I have had such bad luck with it - mainly with the OnStar in car system as it just doesn't seem to like my English accent.

 Thanks!

Laura Rooke:

I tend to shy away from voice control as I have had such bad luck with it.

Yes, of course the recognition quality may be a problem for some people, but it would be important to also still have a menu option (hard/soft key button) when the appointment comes up that says "Start Navigation".  Then you could easily start a GPS Navigation process without the voice recognition. 

Another developer (http://www.proxpro.com/) is working on integrating live traffic information with the Calendar such that you can be reminded to leave at the proper time so that you will get to your destination on time.  This will be much more advanced than the user-chosen reminder times.

Adam Z Lein:

As I said in my CoPilot Live 7 review, the three most-important in-car functions for any mobile device are:

• Play music
• Tell me how to get to my destination
• Allow me to make and answer phone calls

I'd have to disagree with you there Adam. My car contains all the equipment it needs to Play Music of a much higher quality and a greater selection than my Mobile Device. This is something the car stereo should be doing, not the Mobile Device. If you're smart with your selection of stereo you can get a head unit with Bluetooth headset functionality built in too, that will take care of point three as well.  

Dave Parker MVP:

I'd have to disagree with you there Adam. My car contains all the equipment it needs to Play Music of a much higher quality and a greater selection than my Mobile Device. This is something the car stereo should be doing, not the Mobile Device. If you're smart with your selection of stereo you can get a head unit with Bluetooth headset functionality built in too, that will take care of point three as well.  

But does your car sync with your home Media Center PC?  Can you go jogging or bicycling and listen to the same playlists?  Can you manage the playlists on your car from your home computer? 

I can be listening to music through home A2DP speakers, walk to my car, plug the WM device in and continue listening to the same song in the same playlist (by only having to plug in the same device).  Then I can leave the car and go for a walk with A2DP stereo headphones and continue listening to the same playlist.  When I'm home, I can plug the WM device into my Media Center PC and have it auto-sync any new music or playlist changes I may have created on my PC...  the music updates are then instantly usable when I'm in my car, in the living room, outside on the bicycle, etc. 

I want my mobile device to be able to play music, tell me where to go, and make/recieve phone calls no matter where I am. An in-car-only solution does not allow that.  What if I'm walking, bicycling, riding a motorcycle, rental car, in some one else's car, etc.? A portable mobile-device will handle all of those situations.

Consider this imaginary scenario:
I'm out walking in the park listening to music on headphones. My PDA phone announces that I should leave in 15 minutes in order to get to my next appointment on time because there's traffic on 95 and I should leave earlier than originally anticipated.  It asks me if I want to start navigating to the location and I say Yes (or tap the Yes button).  The device calculates a route as I get back into my car or motorcycle.  I plug the device in (or connect it to the Bluetooth helmet), and continue playing the music I was listening to in the park while also listening to turn-by-turn navigation instructions.  Then a phone call comes in, the music pauses as it announces the name of the incoming caller, I say "Answer" and begin speaking to them. GPS navigation instructions continue to play in the background as needed.

The program could be a Calendar app that is able to interrogate your SatNav software.

It is tricky because your looking at a program that would need to, firstly, be able to calculate the trip time and continue to update that time, taking into effect your shifting location and traffic events.

If you began with a program which asked the following questions:

Would you like to use GPS?

Expected start position:(Use current position?)

Appointment location:

The program could then set your reminder for that time, plus a generic 'get ready' lead time.

Plus a nice GUI, that would be a nice app.

Actually, Proxpro already has been working on something with the calendar integration for the Blackberry.  They say they're working on Windows Mobile too.  It does not integrate with a voice-prompting GPS navigation program nor any voice command program though.  It only checks your GPS location, live traffic, and calculates the travel time so that it can remind you of a good time to leave. 

Bringing all of that together is the trick.  I think Live Search Mobile, MS Voice Command, and Windows Mobile could do it if they start working together.

Adam Z Lein:

But does your car sync with your home Media Center PC?  Can you go jogging or bicycling and listen to the same playlists?  Can you manage the playlists on your car from your home computer? 

I can be listening to music through home A2DP speakers, walk to my car, plug the WM device in and continue listening to the same song in the same playlist (by only having to plug in the same device).  Then I can leave the car and go for a walk with A2DP stereo headphones and continue listening to the same playlist.  When I'm home, I can plug the WM device into my Media Center PC and have it auto-sync any new music or playlist changes I may have created on my PC...  the music updates are then instantly usable when I'm in my car, in the living room, outside on the bicycle, etc. 

 I recently installed a Blaupunkt Hamburg MP55 stereo into my car. It has a rear facing USB socket so I attached a 2.5" USB hard drive (100GB capacity) to it. It contains and plays my entire music collection (and my Wife's) and it's not quite reached 25% capacity. When I change the playlists or content on my Vista Ultimate Media Centre PC I just plug the unplug the USB drive in the car (it's in the glove compartment) plug it into the PC, it syncs and its sorted.  The MP55 also has built in Bluetooth headset functionality and has both my HTC Polaris and my Wife's Qtek 8500 (Pink! Yeurgh!) setup so as soon as we get in the car it pairs the headset profile and we're good to go.   

If you want to use the same track and playlist position and insist on using your WM device as a music player in the car then why not just buy a head unit with A2DP on it? Job done? I looked at a couple of head units with A2DP but decided I'd rather have access to my complete music collection and there could be times when I didn't want to take the phone with me. This way is more flexible. 

Dave Parker MVP:

If you want to use the same track and playlist position and insist on using your WM device as a music player in the car then why not just buy a head unit with A2DP on it? Job done? I looked at a couple of head units with A2DP but decided I'd rather have access to my complete music collection and there could be times when I didn't want to take the phone with me. This way is more flexible.

I used to use A2DP in the car, but you can't charge the phone that way...  so what I have now is an ExtUSB jack that both charges the phone and routes all audio to the stereo. If I'm going to plug it in anyway, the wire might as well do both things.  That way everything is controllable through Voice Command... incoming emails, text messages, and appointments are read to me.  Playing music and making phone calls through my bluetooth headset with Microsoft Voice Command is much easier than the Sync system on Fords.  Entering destinations for the GPS is much easier than any in-car GPS navigation system I've seen, but it could still be easier (i.e. getting my destination automatically from my calendar that's synced with Exchange).  I think I saw a commercial for a new PND that does do voice recognition for addresses now, but I'd would still have to read and regurgitate the address from some where else in order to get it into that. 

I'm not really familiar with the car stereo you're using, but can it import contact addresses from your Bluetooth phone and use them as GPS navigation destinations?

My way has been working really well since 2002, and I have yet to see anything more flexible in terms of doing all of those things no matter where I am.

Reading this Thread and listening to all the ideas is like you guys were hearing what I have been trying to do. My company recently began dev. custom apps for the WM device and will add BB later. Here is the first app I want to develop. A app that will tie into GPS and track mileage and dump the data to "a file" so the business person and then import to Quick books or what ever program they use to track there business miles when driving. I have a friend that does business coaching and he came to me saying this is the biggest problem he sees with his clients.

They don't keep track or or write down their business miles traveled or keep very good track of them. I think everyone here has great ideas! VC, Live Search and WM would make a great marriage for such a program.

One of the GPS navigation programs I reviewed last year had a facility sort of like this. All the time it was on it had a trace mode which stored your journey in a text file. You could then look back at the traces and see where you'd been etc.

Dave Parker MVP:

One of the GPS navigation programs I reviewed last year had a facility sort of like this. All the time it was on it had a trace mode which stored your journey in a text file.

Do you remember what program that was by chance? 

MoDaCo CameraAware does similar, but stores your tracker details on the CameraAware servers.

The main part of the application is to give advance warning of speed camera but the tracking option is an additional feature. With constant tracking it uses about 250Kb an hour from what I understand.

More details can be found here http://www.modaco.com/content/windows-mobile-news/246087/cameraware-is-now-available/