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."

Comments

AAPL could buy NOK

[Anonymous Coward]

That would solve their map problem.

They can afford it.

Everyone will be happy.

But MSFT.

Re:AAPL could buy NOK

[MacDork]

I remember getting my N95 just before the first iPhone came out. It came installed with a map app that included directions and navigation. Then a software update removed navigation and made it a paid feature. I refused to update and decided I didn't want a Nokia after that.

Nokia burned what good will they had with me. Apple is now doing the same thing to their users.

Re:Not the only respectable ones

[evilviper]

TeleAtlas isn't to blame for most of the iPhone Maps app problems I've heard about. You can blame the map provider if a road is missing or mislabled, or an address is down the street, but that's about it.

The failed searches and missing home/business locations are a matter of Apple's POI search system being horrible (something Google does well), which switching to NAVTEQ or any other map provider won't fix for them.

AAPL could buy TomTom

[dutchwhizzman]

AAPL could also buy TomTom, one of the main suppliers of maps for IOS6. According to TomTom, their data is fine, but the integration of their data and other sources seems to be causing Apples problems on IOS6. Nokia has the legacy weight of a phone division, while TomTom is barely making any hardware themselves these days and is only into maps and services related to that. At the current price point, TomTom would be far more interesting for AAPL than NOK would be.

TomTom already has an extreme amount of experience in making map applications work on several platforms and they have a foot in the door with several car manufacturers that use TomTom data and applications on their on-board systems. This would give them an entrance in a market they currently are not in. How would you think "iTunes on your car" and "iOS apps on your car" would sound to most people? The first car to offer that would no doubt get a lot of publicity and sales, unless it was a true lemon. TomTom could very well be their entrance into that market and Nokia only has Navteq maps and a bunch of patents as a valuable asset. The patents are being sold off rapidly to fund the rest of the company, so the merit of that is rapidly diminishing. Putting a suffering phone division against the Navteq bit, you don't have a lot of value left I think.