Google launches Android app, trashes competitor’s stock value

Well it looks like the hon­ey­moon is over for port­able nav­ig­a­tion sys­tem makers — Google jumps into their pond.

All the tech blogs are rav­ing today about Google’s new GPS applic­a­tion for Android based phones called Google Maps Nav­ig­a­tion. My good friend Fre­der­ic Lardinois over at Read­WriteWeb calls it the first killer app for Android 2.0:

Android 2.0 just got its first killer app: Google Maps Nav­ig­a­tion. Google Maps Nav­ig­a­tion for Android 2.0 will be avail­able for free and will be part of the default Google Maps app on Android 2.0 phones. The ser­vice offers all the fea­tures that users expect from a mod­ern GPS app, includ­ing traffic data, 3D view and turn-by-turn voice guid­ance. Because it’s con­nec­ted to the Google cloud, the app can also dis­play street view images, satel­lite imagery and real-time traffic data. Google also imple­men­ted a voice recog­ni­tion feature.

And when Google jumps in, you can be there’ll be huge ripples.