Associated Press writer Dana Wollman:

Garmin Ltd., maker of GPS devices, reported higher earnings but lower revenue Wednesday for the third quarter, and said it would abandon its efforts to break into the smartphone market and instead focus on selling GPS hardware to plane and boat makers.

I was excited about the Nuvifone when it was initially announced, but it didn’t take long for me to realize that it was nothing more than a poorly executed product. Garmin would have done much better in this market if they went the route of developing and releasing premium navigation applications on as many of the major smartphone platforms as possible.