Nokia is rolling out a new version of Ovi Maps on Jan. 21
that will offer free walking and driving navigation to users of Nokia
GPS-enabled smartphones.
The new Ovi Maps is immediately available as a free download
to 10 particular handsets — the Nokia N97 mini, 5800 XpressMusic,
5800 Navigation Edition, E55, E72, 5230, 6710 Navigator, 6730 classic and Nokia
X6 — at www.nokia.com/maps.
Beginning in March, however, all new GPS-enabled Nokia
smartphones will come pre-loaded with the new Ovi Maps, which will include map
data for the country it’s purchased in, as well as data from Nokia
partners, including Weather.com, Lonely Planet and, in Europe, the Michelin
guide.
Ovi Maps includes turn-by-turn voice guidance in 74
countries and 46 languages, detailed maps of more than 180 countries, and
traffic information — diverting drivers around accidents or heavy
traffic areas — in more than 10 countries.
Pedestrian guidance can additionally guide users through
malls or parks, and there are maps with 6,000 3D landmarks for 200 cities.
"Nokia's announcement today is interesting in that it significantly
increases the richness of navigation on phones," Crawford del Prete, an analyst with IDC, told eWEEK. "Nokia is doing a good
job of leveraging their considerable investment in Navteq in order to
create a navigation experience for the phone that's comparable to many
of the dedicated GPS devices."
He
continued, "Nokia has focused on ease of use, community and a positive
out-of-the-box experience as key differentiators — this is important,
as these
kinds of applications can get complex very quickly. From a community
standpoint, they are sourcing features such as traffic updates from
free community sources, which increases the richness of the
application, without adding to the cost. [It's] a nice
differentiator for Nokia."
Another differentiator is that, because Ovi maps are loaded on the smartphones, they
don’t depend — as Google Maps does — on a network connection.
When a connection is made, however, maps are refreshed with the latest
information.
“This is a game-changing move. ... We can now put
a complete navigation system in the palm of your hand, wherever in the world
you are, whenever you need it — at no cost,” Anssi Vanjoki,
Nokia executive vice president, said in a statement.
“By adding cameras at no extra cost to our phones we
quickly became the biggest camera manufacturer in the world,” Vanjoki
added. “The aim of the new Ovi Maps is to enable us to do the same for
navigation.”
The new Ovi Maps will also encourage developers to create
new location-aware applications for Nokia’s Ovi Store. Revenue for Nokia
will also come through advertising within the software.
“By using advanced vector graphics, plus an
intelligent combination of pre-loaded and online maps, the new version of Ovi
Maps uses a fraction of the bandwidth of the bulky bitmap technology used by
most mobile map providers,” Nokia said in the statement, with an inferred
nod to Google.
On
Oct. 28, Google launched a beta Google Maps Navigation with voice guidance on
Android 2.0 smartphones. And
in a Nov. 5 review of the Motorola Droid, which runs Android 2.0, The New
York Times’ David Pogue, responding to its navigation software, wrote,
“The real mind blower/game changer? This software is free. All of
it.”
He might now be saying the same thing about Ovi Maps.
Enterprise Mobility News & Reviews 
