Nokia Maps Coming To Other Phones, No Voice Prompts Included
Nokia Maps Coming To Other Phones, No Voice Prompts Included
Posted 11/02/2011 at 2:53pm
| by Ryan Whitwam
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When Nokia showed off its new Windows Phone wares at Nokia World last week, we all wondered if the software features shown off would arrive on other devices. Well, the answer appears to be “kinda.” The most interesting Nokia app was the turn-by-turn Nokia Maps, and other Windows Phone 7 devices will get access, but without voice prompts in navigation.
Nokia Drive fills in a real feature gap in Windows phone, which lacks voice prompts or live routing in its navigation app. The Nokia Maps app will show up in the Windows Phone Marketplace in the next few weeks, but it’s not going to offer much more than the existing integrated Bing Maps. This sets Nokia’s Lumia phones apart from the rest of the Windows Phone lineup.
Microsoft said that Nokia would be a special partner on Windows Phone, and this is the first manifestation of it. Microsoft has been unable to implement a feature, instead leaving it up to Nokia, which reasonably wants to promote its own phones. Do you think Microsoft should develop its own turn-by-turn technology for Windows phone, or let Nokia have this differentiator?
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petrol42
November 02, 2011 at 4:46pm
It would make more sense for Nokia to develop the mapping service since they own NAVTEQ. This is the same company that provides the GPS mapping service to Garmin.
In fact, Wikipedia says that the underlying maps of Yahoo!, Bing and Mapquest use NAVTEQ.
Also, Nokia provides free for all their smartphones, GPS for driving and walking, live traffic, turn by turn navigation in any language, ability to download maps over the air for any country in the world and you could use the GPS offline.
As far as GPS is concerned, no other mobile company comes close.
xeones
November 02, 2011 at 3:32pm
This could be great for those of us who like to travel... The problem with bing maps and google maps is that they always need a data connection for the maps. Nokia maps, from what i remember from my old N95 that i used to love, allows you to download maps.
In 2008 i downloaded all of europe onto my n95 it was awesome. Just bought local sim cards wherever i went and had communication and i never got lost.
But try to get pay as you go sim cards with data it's not so easy. Aside from that, am i the only one who thinks that downloading maps over and over again as you need it is a huge waste of bandwidth?
Holly Golightly
November 02, 2011 at 3:13pm
Microsoft should have made their own long ago. I mean, the damn thing comes with Bing intergration. Use it! Bing has maps, they should have done this long ago... Then Nokia would not have to make their own. I am not a fan of companies adding their own stuff into my phone. One of the reasons why I would not consider an Android as my top priority. Although to be honest, I am turned off by all phones now. That is not to say the Nokia Lumia 800 in Magenta looks bad, because it is a gorgeous phone, I just don't know if I am willing to pay for another expensive 2 year contract.
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