Dual Electronics announced this week the upcoming availability of its “GPS Navigation & Battery Cradle for iPod touch” that includes a GPS-enabled cradle and a turn by turn navigation application. To be available at the end of November, this cradle will retail at $179.99 and includes a rechargeable battery, amplified speaker, audio out connection, a Mini USB port and an adjustable windshield Mount.

“There are approximately 24 million iPod touch owners worldwide who are missing out on the ever-growing number of location-based apps” said Jim Braun, President and CEO of Dual Electronics. “We are excited to be the first to offer a solution that not only expands the capabilities of their device, but also does it in a way that is consistent with why consumers love their iPod touch – the Cradle is simple to use, multifunctional and completely portable”, added Braun.

The cradle is also multipurposes, “it complies with the requirement from Apple to provide GPS location data to any app which requests it, including apps for hiking, bicycling, social networking, geocaching, as well as other navigation apps”, added Dual.

Included in the price, the NavAtlas application - a Dual branded version of G-Map from Korean company XRoad - is a fully-featured turn-by-turn solution with Text-to-Speech technology and the latest U.S. and Canada maps from NAVTEQ.

A competing option is available from GeoLife (US iPhone navigation app Navmii at $39.99) and PosiMotion (G-Fi GPS router selling at $99). TomTom also said it would offer a modified version its iPhone cradle to cater to the iPod Touch form factor, although it is not ready yet and likely to be expensive since its iPhone cradle costs $119 without the navigation software ($99).

Apple is likely to take a close look at the sales of such accessories to assess if it would worth adding GPS to future versions of its iPod Touch.