Preview: CoPilot Live Truck

by Jason Norment Jan 24, 2011 11:40 AM – 9 Comments

ALK Technologies is at it again. They’ve just released a new product for commercial trucking called CoPilot Live Truck. This is the compliment to their successful product for passenger vehicles CoPilot Live.

CoPilot Live Truck is the first of it’s kind: a voice-guided GPS naivgation application that offers truck-specific guidance and routing on your Android phone! This is app is designed specifically for professional drivers of trucks and other large commerical vehicles. So of course, your first question will be: what makes it different than other navigation apps including Google Maps?

CoPilot Live Truck has a few features you won’t find with most navigation apps:

Safe & reliable routes on truck-legal roads
Calculates routes based on vehicle size, width and load type to avoid and commerical truck restrictions
Avoids low bridge heights and clearances and weight/height/width-restricted roads
Avoids Hazmat or flammable materials-restricted roads as appropriate
Efficient routing options include Practical, Shortest, 53’/102” Trailer or Twins, National Network and Toll Avoidance
Ability to create custom route profiles for easy switching between vehicles
Generate state mileage logs to provide an accurate record for billing and tax calculation
Millions of useful Points of Interest for professional drivers are pre-installed, including truck services, truck stops, rest areas and weigh stations and CAT Scales
All this without being reliant on a mobile internet connection for navigation!

We haven’t had a chance to sit down and explore the app yet but we expect to get the same amazing experience we had while using the passenger vehicle version of CoPilot Live! Look out for a full review in the near future.

Be sure to check out our review of CoPilot Live here.

Developer: ALK Technologies

Tags: ALK Technologies, copilot live, CoPilot Live Truck, GPS, GPS Navigation, Off-Road GPS Navigator

Categorised in: Apps Blog, News

9 Comments

By Purple Penguin on January 24, 2011 at 9:33 pm:

$152.10 for this app? This is beyond reasonable. I was about to suggest this to my parents, whom are long haul truck drivers. The I saw the price.

It amazes me how much almost every single company out there attempts to rip off truck drivers.

Reply
- By Jason Norment on January 24, 2011 at 9:51 pm:
  
  I’d be interested to know why the price is set so high as well. On the other hand, commercial trucking GPS is much more involved than GPS units and apps for passengers. There are lots of rules and regulations they must follow. If you take a look at dedicated GPS units for the trucking industry, it’s not uncommon to see $300-500 units. Navigation apps specifically for truckers didn’t really exist until now so I can’t compare a price.
  
  Reply
  - By Purple Penguin on January 24, 2011 at 10:12 pm:
    
    I suppose when the hardware is included a higher price can be more expected. The system will be on longer than a GPS for a personal car. But still, $300 to $500 is not 7.5X more than a good GPS for for a small vehicle.
    
    I think $50 to $65 or so would be much more reasonable.
    
    Reply
    - By Jason Norment on January 25, 2011 at 12:18 am:
      
      Eh, the hardware isn’t much different it’s really the software the defines the two. The amount of conditions, rules, and regulations that the software must calculate to correctly formulate a safe and legal route for commercial trucking is much more difficult than using Google Maps. $50 to $65 wouldn’t be a paid price at all. I don’t drive a commercial truck but I’ll take the opportunity to review the app real-time in a vehicle once I get my hands on it.
      
      Reply
      - By Purple Penguin on January 25, 2011 at 12:38 am:
        
        Yeah, I understand what you are saying and I agree, to a point. My parents use the laptop version of the software from the same company and I know it does a lot more than a standard GPS program. I still think this is a case of gouging the truckers. It’s a great program, it will make the lives of truckers much easier. A good program will sell and this one deserves it. I guess I just wish it was less expensive, my parents already overpay for almost everything else. After seeing the price for this phone app they will most likely just stick with the laptop version.
      - By Jason Norment on January 25, 2011 at 12:50 am:
        
        Agreed. We shall see because I definitely plan to ask ALK some good questions about this app, price included.
By Bobby Mikels on January 25, 2011 at 7:41 am:

When will this app be available in the market Jason? It looks promising, but I still have to try it first. I hope it can help in our Freight Business.

Reply
- By Jason Norment on January 25, 2011 at 9:20 am:
  
  It’s already available on the Android Market. You can do a search for “CoPilot Live Truck” and should be able to find it.
  
  Reply
By Practical Thinking on April 9, 2012 at 9:00 pm:

This pricing seems pretty reasonable when you take in to account who its marketed for.
One, commercial use. Every software company has always charged more for commercial use over private use. It doesn’t matter if you are a Mom and Pop company or a multimillion dollar corporation. If you want to use it to supplement your income, you will pay more.
Two, the user demographic is much smaller than a normal GPS mapping app. It requires much much more coding, i.e. more man hours, therefore requires more return per sale than a normal GPS app.
Three, the only reason anyone would want to know where scales are located is to be able to avoid them. Knowledge costs money people. Price out regular paper road maps and compare them to ones with scale info and you’ll find the prices are 4 to 5 times higher there too.

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