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Ten months ago Garmin announced its first entry into the smartphone market, the nüvifone—a GPS navigator/multimedia phone combo. Recently, the much delayed handset received a significant boost towards an appearance in the real world.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) just approved the nüvifone for release. All devices that use U.S. airwaves must receive a thumbs up from the FCC before shipping in this country.

Of course, just because Garmin's been given the go-ahead, it doesn't mean the smartphone will be released anytime soon or even at all. Garmin did promise a few months ago it would finally roll out the nüvifone during the first half of next year, however. So there's still hope.

Whether the initial excitement generated last February with the smartphone's announcement has been squandered during the ensuing months is another matter entirely. After all, location-based services are now fairly mainstream - almost check off - features among smartphones.

Although Garmin never revealed what carrier would offer the device or how much it would cost, rumor has it the nüvifone could go for around $499.99 and be available from AT&T.

Nüvifone's touch screen measures 3.5 inches. Turn the screen on and you'll see icons labeled Call, Search, and View Map, representing the phone's most important functions.

It allows drivers to find a specific street address, establishment names or search for a destination by category using a database with millions of points of interest. These points of interests are supposed to be enhanced through support for Google local search capability, which nüvifone links to through its 3G cellular-wireless data connection.

Turn-by-turn, voice-prompted directions guide the user to their destination. If they miss a turn along the route, nüvifone - as with Garmin’s standalone nuvi navigators - automatically recalculates the route and gets them back on track, speaking the names of the streets along the way.

In addition to Web browsing, users can make use of nuvifone's wireless connectivity to send and receive e-mail, text, and instant messages, and to subscribe to Garmin Online to receive constantly updated real-time traffic, fuel prices, stock prices, sport scores, news reports, local events and weather forecasts.

Nüvifone, which can play music and video, allows you snap a picture and have it automatically tagged with the exact latitude and longitude reference of where it was taken. The phone also provides direct access to millions of geo-located landmark and sightseeing photographs at Google's Panoramio picture sharing site.

Garmin said it plans to preload maps of North America, Eastern and Western Europe on nuvifone.