It is the first turn-by-turn voice guided navigation app which uses 3D acceleration built into the chip of the iPhone, providing for stunning 3D rendering speed and unchallenged user experience. On top of that, Aura is a unique combination of professional car navigation app, pedestrian travel app with city guides, and a location aware social networking app.

Sygic AURA Drive is the most complete navigation for iPhone, based on a brand new product concept that challenges today’s navigation and LBS industry, and at the same time the first one introducing new technologies. Voice guided turn-by-turn car navigation, travel guides, location based wiki information, pedestrian mode, social network, 3D maps, attractive landmarks and enriched mountain data – all this is under one roof of Sygic AURA Drive. Sygic Aura Drive pioneers in utilization of the 3D acceleration built into the chip of the iPhone, resulting in a stunning 3D rendering speed and an unchallenged user experience. “Where others compete by price reduction, Sygic is strongly focused on bringing differentiation and new ideas on the market”, said Samo Jurdik, Product & Marketing Manager of Sygic.

A wide range of Sygic Aura Drive packages with maps of European regions has got live on App Store yesterday. Sygic Aura Drive starts with an introductory price of EUR 34.99 for any of the packages until May 31, 2010. After this date, regular price of EUR 59.99 per app will apply.

• Sygic Aura Drive Benelux: incl. Belgium, Luxemburg and the Netherlands.
• Sygic Aura Drive D-A-CH: incl. Austria, Germany, Liechtenstein and Switzerland.
• Sygic Aura Drive Eastern Europe: incl. Albania, Belarus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey and Ukraine. (Greece will be added in the next update)
• Sygic Aura Drive France: incl. France and Monaco.
• Sygic Aura Drive Iberia: incl. Andorra, Gibraltar, Portugal and Spain.
• Sygic Aura Drive Italy: incl. Italy, Malta, San Marino and Vatican.
• Sygic Aura Drive Nordics: incl. Denmark, Finland, Norwa and Sweden.
• Sygic Aura Drive U.K. & Ireland: incl. Ireland and United Kingdom.

After purchasing of any of these regional versions of Sygic Aura Drive, iPhone users can enjoy the sensational experience brought by this door-to-door, friend-to-friend navigation and community tool in a beautiful 3D landscape, enabling them to drive, walk and meet easily.

Sygic Aura Drive is loaded with all features one would expect from a professional car navigation device, like maps stored on the phone, as well as a comprehensive speed camera database, easy speed camera sharing and speed limit warnings that protect the user from speeding tickets, or the lane assistant and signposts that help to stick to the right route. Realistic 3D display of buildings, streets and landscape is a perfect aid to orientation and understanding of the surroundings and the route ahead. The result is a safe and comfortable driving or walking experience. Michal Stencl, Sygic’s CEO comments: “Fast route calculation and fluent map rendering on the go, as well as smooth zooming and map movement, especially in the demanding 3D graphical environment, were the basic preconditions when we were building this product, and the app as well as the iPhone processor handles them excellently.” The application also changes smoothly between horizontal and vertical display, as well as switches automatically between day and night colors. Turn-by-turn instruction voices come in more than 20 languages, and the user can make the best of the app thanks to wide range of advanced settings. Loads of POIs, including restaurants and petrol stations are stored inside the app and it is easy to see them on the map, navigate to them or call them directly from the app.

Sygic Aura Drive takes the navigation experience to a whole new level with its information content and social networking abilities.

City guides from premium content providers and from Wikipedia complement maps help the users to get around also when not driving, find the closest historical monument or the closest pub, while the detailed descriptions will help them to choose a place they like. All interesting pictures, web sites, phone numbers and user generated wiki information are pre-installed in the application on the iPhone, with no need to going online for this useful content.

When allowing connectivity, the community feature of Sygic Aura Drive enables sharing the location between Aura friends, and the app shows them the way so that they can meet easily. The Aura users can also share the statuses or chat directly from the app. While the primary aim is booking a place, sending its location to friends and getting them navigated to it in order to meet, it is also possible to vote for a particular restaurant or place directly in Aura, so that everybody is on the right track when choosing a place to go anytime later. Connected features also include the weather forecast – something we are always interested in, whether at home or when travelling.

Michal Stencl, Sygic’s CEO, concludes: “Sygic Aura Drive gets you to your destination whether by car or on foot, helps you to discover what is around, whether you’re in your home town or on travels, and makes it incredibly easy for people to meet without the hustle of making calls – you just share the meeting point and everybody gets guided to it. It is also incredibly fast, the 3D content looks great and it is really a useful hint to orientation. And above all, you can get navigated, call, book places, get information, share your position and ideas, as well as chat and check the weather not only from one gadget, but even without the need to leave a single application at all. We believe that what Aura stands for now, is where the whole mobile industry is heading to.”