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Nokia Keeps Quietly Mapping The World
LucidBeast writes "Mapping the world isn't easy as our friends in Cupertino have found out. Google's maps seem ubiquitous, but there is a less known real heavyweight still mapping the world. Nokia acquired Navteq in 2007, and five years later they are still reading fleet data and scanning cities with LIDAR and 360 degree cameras."
Offline maps with directions and turn by turn navigation are now days free with Nokias. I use Nokia 701 for navigation when biking. Maps are amazingly accurate.
www.mapquest.com
Your reports are flawed, Google wanted to brand the map app if it was going to include all the Google map features. Apple refused to let a Google logo tarnish the iPhone.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
supl.nokia.com works fine. Don't know what you're talking about. All Nokia phones use the Nokia AGPS server.
Are you retarded? They make money by licensing their map data to Microsoft.
Which just shows how petty they are. They would rather switch to an inferior mapping system and screw their customers than have a Google logo in the app.
The logo AND Google collecting user tracking information. Don't forget that bit.
The problem with the wait a year suggestion is what happens in that year? Either another year of iPhone Maps not having navigation, or adding navigation to to two different Maps apps, one for this year (The old Google Maps app), and a different one for next year (The new Apple Maps app). Duplicating work for Apple, and giving the users 2 radical changes rather than one.
Apple will be forced to buy someone to help with their maps. It isn't just a case of doing bug fixes.
Assuming by bug fixes you mean data fixes, yes it IS just a matter of doing that. That's how Google Maps went from poor to good in the days before Street View.
Apple get for themselves the tracking data that Google wanted. Heat maps of where users are whilst using maps gives lots of information about where the navigable roads are, one way streets, restricted turns etc.
And whilst Google may have street view cars, Apple already have airplanes capturing the photos and topology for the flyover feature. They don't have to take years to develop is - it's already developed and in use.
Google and Nokia are the only people who have it.
You need to read the copyright notices at the bottom of Google Maps as you scroll around the world. Google like every other player licenses most of their data from others.