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Nokia Bets Big On Mapping
angry tapir writes "Nokia and Oracle have joined forces on mapping, with details of the deal to be announced at the Oracle OpenWorld conference. To differentiate its smartphones from the competition, Nokia is betting big on location as well as imaging technology. Oracle is expected to add Nokia's mapping technology to its applications. Part of Nokia's location strategy is signing deals for the use of its Navteq mapping technology with as many companies as possible. Besides the deal with Oracle, Nokia has recently announced contracts with car makers BMW, Mercedes, Volkswagen and Korean Hyundai, which will all use Navteq map data in some of their vehicles. Garmin will also start using Nokia data on transit services and walking routes to power a new Urban Guidance feature, which will be available as part of its Navigon app for Android and iOS. Nokia's most important partner on navigation, though, is Microsoft. All smartphones based on Windows Phone 8 will have Nokia's Drive application as standard, while Microsoft's Bing Maps geographical search engine uses Nokia data."
After Microsoft, Nokia chooses a partnership with Oracle ...
They really started late on the evil scene, but they decided to learn fromthe best !
Nokia needs to differentiate itself to survive, and it seems to have found a workable niche just as Apple stumbles.By getting Oracle and Microsoft as partners, they also get a degree of protection from American protectionism, that kept them out of the US market in the past. It pains me to write it, but we may have to re-evaluate Elop.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
but it's not available offline.
Will they attempt crowdsourcing like Googles mapmaker? They have it available right now, but only for African countries. Google has shown it isn't easy. Mapmaker IMHO sucks. Edits I've done misteriously sissappeared after a few weeks live, and their cycle maps don't come anywhere near OpenStreetmap.
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
Yeah. I have heard of it and really a success for the company.
Screw map parts, you can download map countries with Nokia's mapping solution, not just the current "navigation". The big differentiator with Nokia maps is the ability to operate without a data connection. Android can't do that yet (even with the saving feature).
Wouldn't it be funny if Apple bought Nokia, just for their mapping tech?
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Was my first thought too, so effectively they're combining an inferior mapping system with an inferior search engine both of which lack the level of data Google has collected via street view etc. so effectively it's just going to be a shitter version of Google maps?
Competition is good but the problem is Google is so far ahead in terms of raw data collected and mined that it takes more than just simply screaming "Me too" then partnering some arbitrary mapping system with some arbitrary data source as Apple recently found out to it's detriment.
In a pretty anaemic way. One of the reasons I use OSMAnd is that I can download an entire county's maps (as vector data, so they're not huge) and not have to pay roaming when I'm abroad. I also don't need to connect to a remote server (and pay data costs) when I want to find a route. Oh, and the map data is better in all of the places I've visited so far...
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I have it on my N9, and have never even tried it yet. But now that there is so much hype about it, I guess I should take a look at it.
It is quite ironic, that an Apple recommendation would motivate me to use something on my Nokia.
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I welcome this. Nokia makes this move to survive and to capture market share. The worst case result will be that other competitors will also improve. Nokia isn't in the position to be evil and so the good/evil discussions are pretty much moot for the time being.
My Swiss Franc still is on Google though.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
So effectively they're combining an inferior mapping system
There's nothing inferior about Nokia's mapping system. In fact they've been in this business for several years. Look up NavTeq, a wholly owned subsidiary of Nokia, when you have time.
RT.
Hurray, let's all map the planet multiple times!
In a pretty anaemic way. One of the reasons I use OSMAnd is that I can download an entire county's maps (as vector data, so they're not huge) and not have to pay roaming when I'm abroad. I also don't need to connect to a remote server (and pay data costs) when I want to find a route. Oh, and the map data is better in all of the places I've visited so far...
You can download maps for entire countries (plus voice guidance in several languages, with or without street names) with Nokia maps too -- for quite a few years now. Also, they can work completely offline, i.e. you could get by with GPS alone.
RT.
And I can't get excited about any of it making it to an Android smartphone.
:(
Why did you make a Microsoft seed your CEO?
The Internet King? I wonder if he could provide faster nudity.
There really isn't any room for me-too products. RIM is trying to make the perfect business portable communications device - and I hope they succeed - and Nokia is trying to make a stand-out product for people who travel light: good mapping, good cameras, and an OS which isn't iOS, for when iOS becomes meh with the youth market. I hope they succeed too.An iOS/Android world would be pretty gray.
As for Elop, well, my view may be different from the Slashdot norm. Microsoft wants to sell Windows phones and, if they buy Nokia, the other second tier manufacturers may well take fright. If Elop genuinely saw the need for partnering, faced with the two elephants in the room, and pursued that as a strategy, then he deserves some credit.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Slashdot is full of armchair CEOs, but I do wonder how many of them could succeed running a market stall.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
I was a long-term Nokia user up until I got an Android phone relatively recently, having use their phones since the 90s.
Honestly, their mapping system was always "okay", but it's not even close to Google maps so it absolutely is inferior. It was about the same level as TomTom's maps were on my SatNav - fine most the time, but not so great for finding individual premises, and more "wrong roads" than Google Maps.
Google Maps allow you to download maps and directions for offline viewing and has done for a while now.
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> Android can't do that yet (even with the saving feature).
Weird. Offline navigation seemed to work last time I tried it.
Log in or piss off.
Everybody else will eat Google's dust because of the money Google has already spent gathering the pictorial information
I disagree. A 3D overhead view, like both Apple and Nokia offer is a good alternative to street view.
I fact I would say it's slightly better. Why would you drive down the street "looking at street view". That's what you are seeing right now while driving!
An overhead 3D view gives you more a sense of what is around you, while still being able to make out details of buildings to find something exactly.
The 3D overhead view is much cheaper to generate, since it takes a few passes with planes (and a lot of computer time!) and you have covered a large region. For companies the size of Nokia or Apple that is an expense they can easily afford.
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Glad you said that. Remember when Google used Navteq before it was acquired by Nokia? Yes, Nokia got all those products and worked off-line way before any other cellphone manufacturer.
Quite odd certain Slashdot readers don't know about that.
It allows you to download a few patches of the map (IIRC it's something like 10 squares of up to 10x10 miles?). Nokia maps let you download maps of the whole country.
Also, even with precached maps, Google Maps require online connectivity for navigation. Nokia ones don't - once you preload, it can search for POI, navigate etc completely offline.
right, because i need the entire map of north america eating up gigabytes on my device when i'll never use it. great differentiator there.
Also, even with precached maps, Google Maps require online connectivity for navigation. Nokia ones don't - once you preload, it can search for POI, navigate etc completely offline.
that's nice, so nokia can go the way of the dedicated GPS device and become a supplier to a niche market. there are reasons why people aren't paying for dedicated GPS devices any longer. figuring the reasons for that is an exercise for the reader.
street view and 3D maps serve different purposes
For me, I use them for exactly the same thing. To get an idea of where somewhere I am going looks like so I'll have a better chance of knowing when I am there or if I missed something.
What else would you use street view for?
Both improve over simple satellite view because you get a better sense of the height of things around and what the area will look like in person.
google has both.
So does the iPhone, there's an app that lets you access Street View images. In fact it's easier to use than Street View on the original iPhone Google Maps ever was.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Except Nokia isn't a dedicated GPS device - it's still a smartphone, and does everything that you'd expect from one. And it also does everything you expect from an offline navigation device.
Oh, and by the way, people do still pay for those. Precisely because they actually need them to work offline, for those far range trips with poor coverage (and, in Europe and generally outside of US, to not pay insane data roaming charges).
google lets you select a rectangle to cache. it doesn't just cache the route (although it does also cache routes automatically).
I'd be dead without mine. Picture this: me moving about 30 miles per hour down a long straight hill in the Bay area, pedaling hard, and misjudging the light I see changing on the side street, I plow my bike full-on into the side of a car turning right in front of me. The 100+ feet of skid marks I left on the asphalt before correctly determining that I would not be able to stop were not enough to avoid the collision. About 30 feet before my bike slammed into the side of the vehicle, I stood up on the left side pedal, timed my departure, and pushed off, jumping from it in time to fly through the air just behind the car as my bike proceeded ahead. It was a cool day, and I had a jacket on. I sailed upside down, face up past the car and landed on my back and head, sliding along the ground on my jacket and helmet for a good 20 or 30 feet farther down the slope. I remember coming to rest and laying there for a while, then getting up to check the car and the accident site. I was fine, though a little shaken up. Traffic had stopped in each direction and people were swarming around the car. The driver got out, completely white. I looked at the dent and my bike, crumpled and considerably shorter than it had ever been from one end to the other. People said they had seen sparks when the collision happened. I told the driver, looking at the dent, "I'm sorry about your car." He said in a high voice, "Never mind about the car! Are you all right?" I said I was fine. I felt pretty wobbly, though, and someone took me the rest of the way home. Later, I took the bike into our local shop, which was a good one. The guy behind the counter turned around from the bike he was working on, and when he saw what I had carried in, he put down the wrench, came around the counter, put his hand on my shoulder and said firmly but gently, "My friend, that bike is history." I would be dead without my helmet. Bikes are not just for tooling around parks slowly, looking at the scenery. And even when you think they are, or just vehicles for ambling gently from place to place, things can turn ugly in an unexpected way very, very fast. Wear your helmet.
OSM is nice but it's quality and accuracy are nowhere near Nokia's data. I've used their stuff for a long time now and it's never had a glitch, the OSM maps have. Note: I'm all for open / crowd-sourced, etc, but in this case OSM doesn't match Nokia for reliability.
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