iLounge

ALK Technologies had released an update to its original CoPilot Live series of applications, providing users with a much-delayed, albeit free upgrade offering the features introduced in last year’s new CoPilot Live Premium app. Last summer, ALK revamped its CoPilot Live series of apps, splitting them into a separate Premium and Standard tier and releasing them as separate and entirely new applications. The new Premium application was initially sold at a discount in consideration of users who had already purchased the prior version, but still required users to spend money to purchase what was essentially an upgrade and install it as an entirely new application. Further, users of the original applications who chose not to purchase the new Premium version were left with outdated map data.

The new update to the original CoPilot Live applications now provides users with a free upgrade to the new generation of CoPilot Live applications along with an update to the most current 2011 Q4 map data. New features include a redesigned and more intuitive user interface, support for alternate routes, drag-and-drop route editing, speed limit displays and warnings, lane indicator and signpost information and integration with Wikipedia and Bing Local Search for finding points of interest and looking up additional information about them. The upgrade also preserves data such as favourites, recents and subscriptions for existing users. Although the original CoPilot Live applications remain available for sale on the App Store, new users should purchase the CoPilot Live Premium apps, which are available in a number of region-specific apps with prices ranging from $20-$60 for the iPhone only versions depending on the region; universal “HD” versions are also available in the $25-$70 price range.