Here is a real quick look at "Nate Drive" (네이트 드라이브). This was an app in the early 2000s and a corresponding accessory dash-mounted GPS antenna for feature phones (yes, before the smartphone era). With certain models of cell phones, you could join a paid service and get real-time traffic navigation and updates right on your phone, years before maps on touchscreen smartphones would be a reality.
It looks pretty barebones by today's standard but consider the state of in-car navigation systems back then and their difficulty in being updated.
Here are a few random shots of it I collected from around the net. It's obviously a clunky concept and way ahead of its time, but fascinating.
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| Shots of Nate Drive (네이트 드라이브) |
It lives on today: the basic foundation of the Nate Drive app would be revised into today's T-Map, arguably Korea's most popular turn-by-turn navigation app.
There's even a YouTube video of it in-action here:
LG-SV900 Nate Drive 로드테스트(1)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thCcKbIx6iY
I think the video does it a lot more justice than the images. This was peak consumer technology back then. Amazing to me how the models (both the phone devices and the women showcasing it) have changed looks over time.
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