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."

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: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.