Nokia Releasing Maps for Competing Devices

another random user writes with news about Nokia's Meego/Winphone mapping application being ported to other systems, including Mozilla's Firefox OS. From the article: "Here Maps will initially be released on Apple iOS devices offering downloadable street plans for offline use, and audio-based directions for pedestrians. Nokia is also developing a version for Mozilla's forthcoming Firefox operating system, and will release software tools to allow third parties to make use of its data on Android devices. The move is designed to help the firm compete against Google's rival product."

Comments

Interesting

[Cinder6]

I keep hearing about how great Nokia's maps are, so I'll be interested to try it. Having more users means more data sources, which means that the product should be able to improve more than if it were limited to Nokia phones. I just hope it has a better interface than their website, which is way behind Google's in usability.

Offline maps are great when travelling

[Anonymous Coward]

When I'm driving through the rockies, sometimes I just cannot get a phone/data signal, so having maps available offline is very valuable

Re:Offline maps are great when travelling

[RenderSeven]

...which is why Google Maps latest release has offline maps. Pan to the map section you want, hit the menu button and click "Make available offline". Even works for AC's in the Rockies.

Re:Offline maps are great when travelling

[stigmato]

Travelling between Ohio and Indiana, there is a pretty long stretch of no 3G access on my phone, and my map just listed blank nothingness.

Sounds like its displaying Ohio accurately to me.

Re:Offline maps are great when travelling

[gutnor]

However Nokia Drive ( on a Nokia phone ) works more like a GPS device. It allows you to download map on a country by country basic. Very useful in Europe.

Re:Offline maps are great when travelling

[Bill_the_Engineer]

..which is why Google Maps latest release has offline maps.

Which is still pretty much crap. I used it when I was traveling in New Mexico and Google's map cache consumed most of my phone's memory and still didn't work well enough to be useful.

Re:Offline maps are great when travelling

[Etherized]

From what I can tell, you cannot navigate or search for addresses while in "offline" mode on Google Maps. If you are already navigating or already have search results up, they will remain, but you cannot pre-download a map and start navigation while offline.

This is not a huge issue for me, since I seldom travel where there is no service, but it would be nice to not have to worry about this at all. I do not know whether Nokia Maps is any better - until now that has been rather academic as it had not supported Android :)

Re:Offline maps are great when travelling

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone from Indiana, that isn't fair. I've been all over this state as well as Ohio. Even in its more rural parts there are little tiny towns interconnected. I hung out in a lot of them when I was younger and know that if my car breaks down anywhere in the Midwest I can pick a direction and walk to civilization within an hour or less.

Contrast that with the southwest or worse...Mississippi or Alabama. Even the developed areas in between major cities are completely freaking desolate. No businesses, no services, no people for 60 to 100 mile stretches. When they say "no gas station for..." they mean it.

What I'm trying to say is that the Midwest has a lot, just nothing of note. There's a difference between something and nothing.

Re:Offline maps are great when travelling

[ericloewe]

As long as you don't leave the cached route...

Re:Offline maps are great when travelling

[queazocotal]

And as long as the provider of the data allows them to - for example - not in Japan.

Re:Offline maps are great when travelling

[stephanruby]

It can pre-cache, but you have to enable it specifically. It's one of the experimental google labs inside your Google Maps/Navigation application.

Nokia's data source is great

[Anubis IV]

For those who aren't aware, Nokia sources its mapping data from FedEx and a number of other couriers. As a result, the maps that they're using are not only more up-to-date, since the couriers need to keep them updated in order to stay in business, but they're also more able to work in data such as traffic patterns and the like, since the couriers put in FAR more time and miles on the road than the technology companies.

To put it in perspective, UPS drives 3.3 billion miles each year. In contrast, Google's cars have driven "only" 5 million miles in total. So, roughly a thousand times more in a fraction of the time. Google's mapping data isn't insignificant, but it's dwarfed by the amount being produced by UPS, FedEx, and the like, and Nokia has access to all of that.

Re:Nokia's data source is great

[tlhIngan]

Doesn't Nokia also own NavTeq, one of the premier mapping companies that provides map data to everyone as well?

Re:Nokia's data source is great

[Bill_the_Engineer]

I thought it was because Nokia owns Navteq which has been a provider of GPS based navigation since the late '80s. Most of the couriers use Navteq as well as some US municipalities which explains the high accuracy of the mapping data.

Re:Nokia's data source is great

[darrylo]

In the case of the Apple Maps issues, map data accuracy is just one of three big issues. The other two are:

* POI data, such as public transit info (nonexistent) and POI accuracy (POIs may be in the wrong location or no longer existing).

* Street View. Lots of people use Street View to examine an area (e.g., "What's the parking situation like?").

Re:3 Years Late

[Savage-Rabbit]

Nokia is too late to the table to grab the most delicious morsels; the easily picked fruit.

If they do this quickly enough, and offer the same feature set as Google Maps, they can get a whole mess of disgruntled iOS users as well as draining away market share from Google Maps. Google Maps is nice as long as you have network coverage, but it sucks ass the moment you loose your connection (at least it did on iOS). If Nokia maps offers better offline performance than the Google Maps app did on iOS then I'd use it in preference to Google Maps any day, it would beat dragging a Garmin unit around with me. Another downside of Google maps is that if you don't live in the US/EU and in the vicinity of a major population center there are many places where you do not get down-to-house-number navigation. This may all work perfectly for Android users but on iOS Google Maps kind of sucked. I have often found myself getting down-to-house-number navigation in many places with Nokia (Bing) maps where I was SOL with Google Maps. In places with no coverage or where even Bing Maps fails I usually reach for my Garmin unit. Come to think of it, if I was Apple I'd consider fixing Apple Maps by buying Garmin. Dunno if that is realistic but Garmin maps are really good including their international maps.

Giving up the crown jewels?

[qaqa]

Nokia maps are by far the best in the mobile space. It is one of Nokia's biggest selling points. Now that they are making their maps available to everyone, what "killer exclusive feature" do people have to move to Nokia/WP8? Are they resigned to becoming an app developer, a sideshow, for the biggies?

Can it pronounce street names correctly?

[viperidaenz]

I use google navigation some times and it has never succeeded in pronouncing any non-english street names remotely correct.