Montreal Tech Watch

Text’n Drive has been launched today in the US and in Canada as a safe way for drivers to check new emails and send messages, without actually having to stop or leave their eyes on the road. The application connects to your email server, checks if there are new unread messages, has a synthetic voice to read them, and you can also speak to your device to start composing new emails.

The app in itself is available on the iPhone, and soon on Blackberry and Android. I like the concept because it actually tries to solve a customer problem, in a very simple way. Nothing fancy or glamorous, no sophisticated new technologies, just standard shiny buttons and a very simple homepage [n'est-ce pas ... but I digress]

The application is now in the top free apps list in number of downloads in the U.S. (no2 in productivity category), and should be no.1 in upcoming days.

As most mobile companies, HandsFree offers a free version, while the pro version is at $20 on iTunes music store. And as usual, everyone loves the free version, while paying customers are complaining about the service for the pro version. I expect the company to invest substantial efforts on getting customer feedback and improving their app in the next few weeks.

Text’n Drive was funded by Daniel Robichaud, serial entrepreneur/Montreal Angel investor. Daniel tells me he has seen recent figures highlighting “texting accidents”, and decided to then to work on this application. If you are a driver , a busy person, or just curious about a new Montréal-born mobile app, try out Text’nDrive