pick up the phone and ... drive

Are you one of those middle-aged technophobes who watch in astonishment as their teenagers deftly navigate complex devices like Apple's iPhone? If so, you'll need to get with the program. If a couple of new product announcements we've seen recently are any indication, you too may soon be tapping, sliding, and texting.

Yes, it seems the iPhone is fast becoming a transportation management tool. As ARC Advisory Services analyst Steve Banker noted in a commentary on ARC's Logistics Viewpoint Web site, Apple's decision to offer software development kits for the iPhone opened the door to all kinds of business applications, including some for transportation and logistics. Here are two examples:

• DriverTech, designers of the DT4000 TruckPC onboard computing system, and iCooper Inc., developers of applications for iPhone and other mobile devices, are working on a new fleet communications solution. When it's ready for rollout, the system will use the iPhone as a data collection tool to upload information to a mobile local area network. DriverTech users will be able to capture and synchronize delivery, truck, driver, and customer data wirelessly or through an incab docking device.
• Third-party logistics service and technology provider D.W. Morgan Co. has developed its own application for the Apple iPhone that communicates shipment tracking reports and recipient signatures from locations around the world. Customers access that information in real time via D.W. Morgan's Web site. The iPhone's global positioning system (GPS) provides the exact location of a delivery, which customers can display on a Google Earth map. The application is integrated with Morgan's ChainLinq suite of transportation and inventory management applications. With iPhone service available in 85 countries, compatibility is not an issue as it is with some cell phone services.

What will they think of next? Banker predicts iPhone peripherals will be reading bar codes sometime next year.