Magellan Navigation, Inc. is an American producer of consumer and professional grade global positioning system receivers, named after Ferdinand Magellan, the first explorer to circumnavigate the globe. Headquartered in

San Dimas, California San Dimas (Spanish language, Spanish for "Penitent thief, Saint Dismas") is a city in the San Gabriel Valley of Los Angeles County, California, United States. At the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, its population was 34,924. It historic ...

, with European sales and engineering centres in

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France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

and

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Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

, Magellan also produces aftermarket automotive GPS units, including the Hertz Neverlost system found in

Hertz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), often described as being equivalent to one event (or Cycle per second, cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose formal expression in ter ...

rental cars. The Maestro, RoadMate, Triton, and eXplorist lines are Magellan's current consumer offerings. The company also produces proprietary road maps (DirectRoute), topographic maps (Topo), and marine charts (BlueNav) for use with its consumer GPS receivers.

History

Magellan started as an independent company. It was once owned by

Orbital Sciences Corporation Orbital Sciences Corporation (commonly referred to as Orbital) was an American company specializing in the design, manufacture, and launch of small- and medium- class space and launch vehicle systems for commercial, military and other governmen ...

, which purchased it in 1994. In 2001,

Thales Group Thales S.A., Trade name, trading as Thales Group (), is a French multinational corporation, multinational aerospace and defence industry, defence corporation specializing in electronics. It designs, develops and manufactures a wide variety of aer ...

purchased the Magellan division of Orbital Sciences for about $70 million and the company became known as Thales Navigation. Five years later, private equity firm Shah Capital Partners and other investors purchased Thales Navigation for $170 million and the company was officially renamed Magellan Navigation. Magellan was the creator of the Magellan NAV 1000—the world’s first commercial handheld GPS receiver, which debuted in 1989. In 1997, Magellan also introduced the first handheld global satellite communicator—the GSC 100. Later consumer handheld products included the Magellan GPS 2000, GPS 315, Meridian, SporTrak, and Magellan RoadMate models. The MobileMapper CE and ProMark3 have been marketed to professionals like surveyors and GIS (

geographic information systems A geographic information system (GIS) consists of integrated computer hardware and software that store, manage, analyze, edit, output, and visualize geographic data. Much of this often happens within a spatial database; however, this is not ...

) users. The consumer division of Magellan was purchased by

Mio Technology Mio Technology Corporation (), a subsidiary of MiTAC, MiTAC International Corporation, is a Taiwanese electronics maker that manufactures and markets pocket PCs, personal digital assistants (PDAs), smartphones and personal navigation devices (PN ...

subsidiary of MiTAC on December 15, 2008, who changed the name to "MiTAC Digital Corporation".

Consumer products

Magellan develops and distributes vehicle navigation, crossover GPS, and outdoor handheld navigation products. The Company also produces customized mapping software for topographic, marine, and street navigation. Current GPS products as of 2016 include: *The Magellan RoadMate and Magellan Maestro series of portable car navigation systems *The Magellan CrossoverGPS for automobile and handheld navigation *The Magellan eXplorist and Magellan Triton series of outdoor handheld navigation devices *The Hertz NeverLost car navigation system *The Magellan TRX Off-Road navigation systems Magellan GPS units include a variety of different viewing options, including a 3D

bird's-eye view A bird's-eye view is an elevated view of an object or location from a very steep viewing angle, creating a perspective (graphical), perspective as if the observer were a bird in flight looking downward. Bird's-eye views can be an aerial photog ...

, a night view, and pop-up visuals of upcoming turns. Some models use SiRFstarIII for position accuracy within three metres, and voice and onscreen prompts that provide directions on how to drive to a particular destination. Certain Magellan vehicle navigation systems are also Bluetooth-compatible for integration with mobile phones, and traffic upgradeable for real-time traffic information. The Maestro 4050 is the first portable vehicle navigation device to offer drivers the convenience of voice command capabilities. The Company has a partnership with AAA that provides drivers with AAA TourBook guide travel information, AAA Member Roadside Assistance details, and AAA Show Your Card & Save Member Discount locations on specific models.

Maps

Magellan products currently use Navteq based maps. Map errors are handled by the Navteq Map Reporter. Errors can be reported using the Navteq Map Reporter map feedback page.

References

External links

Magellan Consumer GPSNavteq Map ReporterMaps4me.de: Free OpenStreetMap for Magellan systemsOpenstreetmap.org: OSM Map on Magellan
— ''details on Magellan map making''.
Magellan GPS Map Updates

Magellan Roadmate Update
{{MiTAC Holdings, state=autocollapse Navigation system companies Technology companies based in Greater Los Angeles Companies based in Los Angeles County, California San Dimas, California American companies established in 1986 Technology companies established in 1986 1986 establishments in California Science and technology in Greater Los Angeles

History

Consumer products

Maps

See also

References

External links