It can’t eat battery if the little arrow icon isn’t showing (next to the battery meter)—but if the little arrow is showing, then yes, it’s still running the GPS. Kill it! Kill it!

Thankfully, Navigon stops tracking when you arrive—I suspect TomTom will update to do the same.

I must say I've been pretty impressed with the Google navigation on this phone so far. Of course a plus is it's always up to date with the latest street maps if Google maps is up to date, and the software is better than the Garmin unit my wife has. Voice control is great.

I think you're right about phones putting the GPS companies out of business, at least slowly. I downloaded a geocaching app called C:Geo and it's absolutely fantastic. Links directly to the geocaching website, sees where you are located and displays every single cache around you in whatever radius you determine, complete with arrow pointing to it that moves as you turn the phone. Ones you've found already are marked, as long as you've listed them as found on the groundspeak site. Tap one, it gives you all the information for the cache right down to hints on how to find it. Tap navigate, you can have either a compass, radar readout (which is cool), or turn by turn directions. Once it's found you can then mark it found on the website, upload any comments, repair comments, even upload a picture you just snapped.

Of course I have real reservations about taking my phone way out into the sticks, and my little eTrex can be dropped banged an tossed in water all day long without concern. But for urban caching it's unbeatable. Maybe when they make a military spec smart phone you can toss around and drop in water, items like the eTrex will finally have met their maker.

I always wanted to try geocaching. I even got some kind of multifunction GPS app for it, that does stuff like ROT13 and other puzzle-solving utils. One of these days I’ll get to it...

For deep woods protection, OtterBox and others have some armored cases that could do the trick! (Or whatever the army uses when they deploy iPod Touches?) I bet you can leave your eTrex in a drawer before long.

The two best points about Android, I think, are the included voice nav and the speech-to-text dictation. (NaturallySpeaking is free for iPhone, but it’s not included and not pervasive.) My Android friends (big A, not small a) complain about the voice dictation not working right, but every single time I take their Android from them and do it, it’s completely accurate. I’m not talking slowly or anything. Drives them nuts As far as I’m concerned, it just works.

The downside of the Android navigation is a doozy (it doesn’t work when there’s no Internet coverage), but for free it’s very nice. I haven’t heard good things about MapQuest’s freebie for iPhone, and the built-in navigation has directions but no voice guidance.

Happily, Navigon goes on sale regularly. I got it (the MyRegion version) for $15. Works with no Internet needed, and updates are free for life. Even traffic is a one-time cost ($10) but I didn’t feel the need for it.