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

iOmess 6

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't do it!

Re:iOmess 6

[Anonymous Coward]

I really wish people would stop focusing on the iOS 6 Maps fiasco. It's getting old.

Plus, it's distracting from things like:

* The music app is now buggy as all hell. I've had it play one song while saying it's playing another song. Not to mention it randomly forgetting where in a playlist it was, pausing randomly skipping back to the beginning of the song, and other general wonkiness.
* If you had paused a podcast and receive a call, hanging up the call will suddenly start the podcast playing again. Surprise!
* The podcast app can't update podcasts. You can tell it to - but it won't. The only way to get new episodes is to sync with iTunes.
* Photo syncing is just hilariously broken. Rather than replacing existing photos, iTunes will just copy a new set on, leaving you with all the old photos as permanent "extra" storage. Solution: Do a factory reset. Hope you don't need any of your *other* data!
* Just try and set an alarm to 2 o'clock.
* Battery life is worse.
* Apps are just generally slower - animation is noticeably "jerkier" in iOS 6.

And I'm sure other iOS 6 users can expand on this. iOS 6 is just laughably bad - even if you completely ignore the maps!

Re:iOmess 6

[binarylarry]

Why do you phrase all these great new features like they're problems?

Signed,
Apple Fanboy

Despite what you think...

[Anonymous Coward]

A good friend of mine works in this department as a product manager; he has been there since they were NavTeq. You should take a look at Nokia's financials before busting out the "M$ evil" conspiracy theories. The navigation unit is the only part of the company that is profitable right now. They have excellent data (probably the best available, mention is halfway down the page) and they do a lot more with it than put it in phones. Basically, anybody who needs to have vetted data (ie, when salesmen need to tell clients that the data is better than what they can get online for free) to put in a product use Nokia maps. Many high-end cars with built in navigation are using them for example.

The higher-ups at Nokia know this. They are trying to leverage this to position the company for growth. Their internal mantra is that "Google is what, Microsoft is who, and we are _where_". Hence, the publicity: this is the only bright spot for Nokia and they need to milk it. If you ask me, they are grasping at straws; but the I can see the logic.

Re:What about websites?

[Anonymous Coward]

www.mapquest.com

Keeping up to date

[gr8_phk]

Some cars have forward facing cameras already for lane keeping systems or lane departure warning. Some of these cameras can read signs and let you know if you're speeding, etc. Ultimately it may be the car companies who have the best maps which might be updated continuously by tens of millions of cars. Hmmm time for me to transfer to the driver assistance systems part of the company....

This may also explain why Google wants driverless cars, so they can fully automate the data collection.

Re:AAPL could buy NOK

[Kenja]

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.