The arrival of contemporary smartphones and mobile apps in the late 2000s didn't just fundamentally change what consumers expect from their handsets, it also ended up disrupting a wide variety of industries, with mobile navigation being its first target. Founded in 1999, Santa Clara, California-based Telenav was enjoying a relatively successful first decade of existence, having worked with major U.S. carriers such as AT&T and Sprint on offering navigation services. Following the arrival of Google Maps, it suddenly found itself having to rethink its flagship product after after Google's solution, offering a comparable navigation service free of charge, became available on every new smartphone. "It made the industry sweat quite a bit at the time," Telenav Executive Director of Strategy Ky Tang recalled in an interview with Android Headlines, asserting Google Maps had changed the navigation game significantly. At a time when smartphones were enjoying massive globa...
