Patent ID: 7546207

Claim:
A turn-by-turn navigation system implemented within an audio system of a vehicle, the navigation system comprising: a control unit having a visual display and selection controls, wherein each of the selection controls are individually configurable to provide either a navigation feature or an audio feature; a processor electrically coupled to the control unit and configured to receive selections from the control unit based upon actuation of the selection controls; a database comprising road-network/address information and configured to input database information to the processor; and a vehicle location apparatus configured to input vehicle location data to the processor; wherein the processor is configured to respond to each of the selections to process either the audio feature or the navigation feature, and wherein the processor is further configured to respond to the navigation control by calculating a turn-by-turn route to a selected destination, based on a received destination selection from the control unit and on received road-network/address information from the database, and wherein the processor is further configured to generate instructions and a turn icon image having an embedded countdown bar on the visual display in response to the navigation feature, wherein the embedded countdown bar is progressively highlighted as the vehicle approaches a turn point.