Huawei Finally Launches Brilliant Google Alternative (forbes.com) 64
Since Huawei's latest smartphones have no access to Google's Play Store, many crucial apps aren't available. David Phelan from Forbes reports that TomTom Go Navigation has launched on Huawei's own "AppGallery" app store, filling the void of navigation apps and making AppGallery a potent alternative to Google's Play Store. Phelan writes: TomTom [...] is an unquestionable big beast in the world of mapping with huge name recognition. It also has an offline setting, something that's strikingly important for navigation apps, since you may well be using it abroad where roaming costs can be high. With TomTom Go Navigation, detailed 3D maps are stored on the phone. TomTom specialities include moving lane guidance which helps drivers navigate intersections by indicating which lane is best. You can also customize maps by adding or deleting regions as needed. The only downside is that TomTom Go Navigation, unlike Here WeGo and indeed Google Maps, is not free. There's a 30-day free trial, after which it costs $12.99 per year, $8.99 for six months or $1.99 per month.
This is not TomTom's first collaboration with Huawei. The company uses TomTom's mapping solution in its Huawei Mobile Services kits, which developers can use â" ride-share apps need mapping kits, for example. Those are not accessible to consumers, of course, but this app, based on the same mapping, is. Oh, and that's not the end of the story. Huawei's own Maps app is coming and is being developed in conjunction with TomTom. It Huawei gets it right, it could diminish the loyalty to Google Maps decisively.
This is not TomTom's first collaboration with Huawei. The company uses TomTom's mapping solution in its Huawei Mobile Services kits, which developers can use â" ride-share apps need mapping kits, for example. Those are not accessible to consumers, of course, but this app, based on the same mapping, is. Oh, and that's not the end of the story. Huawei's own Maps app is coming and is being developed in conjunction with TomTom. It Huawei gets it right, it could diminish the loyalty to Google Maps decisively.
Brilliant, eh? (Score:5, Interesting)
What is this, the PR wing of the CCP?
Hey, they have an app. One whole app (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey, this is a big deal. The Huawei store has an app now. An entire app.
That's 0.0000037% as many as Google's Play Store!
Just 27 million more apps to go.
Re:Hey, they have an app. One whole app (Score:4, Insightful)
Hey, this is a big deal. The Huawei store has an app now. An entire app.
That's 0.0000037% as many as Google's Play Store!
Just 27 million more apps to go.
Reminds me of the 70s when American car giants laughed at the Japanese with their front wheel drive cars.
When one looks at the industry now, the likes of GM are a laughing stock!!
I will tell you this, I will NEVER touch an American branded car, ever!
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The government of China had to get a mapping app working to replace Google maps (with a street view catch up), so as to retaliate against Google in the China market, as simple as that. Google is dead in China and make no mistake and businesses headquartered in China will push Google out, in their operations in the rest of the world, pushing alternate solutions. Google eliminated first in China and then gutted in the rest of the world. Consider this, the Government of China does not care how much of Google m
Re:Hey, they have an app. One whole app (Score:5, Informative)
Google map doesnt work very well in China anyway as the Chinese use a different coordinate system. Basically the world is not a perfect sphere - its more of a squashed orange so any coordinate system with 360 degrees we use is always a compromise. The way coordiante systems do this is using an approximate sphere like object called a geoid. As its a compromise depending on the geoid you get better or worse accuracy. Google maps uses the WGS84 geoid which gives highest accuracy in the western hemisphere but in Asia the accuracy goes down. Chinese official coordinate systems use a different geoid which gives higher accuracy in Asia.
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Are you really making that argument?
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Re: Hey, they have an app. One whole app (Score:1)
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I will tell you this, I will NEVER touch an American branded car, ever!
The truth is that cars are extremely uneven in general. Each maker has its strengths and weaknesses and American cars are not especially horrible compared to any other nation's, though some are worse than others. Most American cars make sense in the context of America. We have "cheap" fuel (cheaper than most other nations, except for a few nations which make all their money making it) and wide roads, and travel long distances. We also have very poorly trained drivers, including professional ones. It makes s
Tesla is an R&D company, taking risks with ide (Score:2)
Tesla is trying to license their tech to car makers, because Telsa is good at R&D, at new ideas. Tesla is a great R&D company, not afraid to take risks with new ideas. They come up with cool ideas for cars, and have a company culture that encourages trying crazy new ideas.
They acknowledge that's the opposite of the skills and culture for reliably, consistently making the same car over and over, with repeatable, consistent results.
When they try to BUILD cars, they do things like routinely forgetting
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When they try to BUILD cars, they do things like routinely forgetting to put on the bolts that hold the front suspension together, the ones that hold the wheels to the car. Or they put them on, but don't tighten them. Tesla's leaders know they are a poor manufacturing company, that they suck at actually *building* cars. Things like suspension bolts, the parts that connect the wheel spindle to the frame of the car, are kinda important.
Yeah, it's a good thing no major automaker has had a problem with loose bolts in the front suspension [carcomplaints.com]. Because, you know, that would mean the end of them as a company [caranddriver.com]. I mean, this kind of thing just never happens [reuters.com]. You'll certainly never see something like that happen to a Japanese automaker [spglobal.com], their attention to detail is just too great [reuters.com].
I could go on, but I'm bored already. Yes, it's terrible that Tesla improperly fastened major suspension components, but pretending that all the other automakers don't have t
Maybe you should run Tesla, since you know better (Score:2)
Perhaps you know more about Tesla than Elon Musk does.
https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
Musk says their attempts to manufacture thousands of cars has been "hell", as has their delivery and logistics problems. Musk keeps saying he wants to license their tech to auto makers -you know, companies that have been successfully manufacturing MILLIONS of cars for a hundred years, because that's not Tesla's strong suit.
Perhaps you should be running the company, since according to you Elon Musk has no idea what he's t
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Musk says their attempts to manufacture thousands of cars has been "hell", as has their delivery and logistics problems.
Yes, building complex machines like cars is hard. The entrenched automakers have supply chain relationships and experience going back decades.
Musk keeps saying he wants to license their tech to auto makers -you know, companies that have been successfully manufacturing MILLIONS of cars for a hundred years, because that's not Tesla's strong suit.
Sure, so what? Even the entrenched automakers license tech to other automakers. Or these days, more likely they merge for a while and exchange technologies, then separate again. For legal reasons this is simpler than licensing patent after patent individually. Take for example how Chrysler and Mercedes got together and then separated. I don't know what Mercedes got ou
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> and I concluded specifically that they did not.
While their CEO has been very public about disagreeing with you.
Yoh can think you know Tesla better than Elon Musk does if you want to. The rest of us call that narcissistic personality disorder.
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Elon's job is PR. Your job is to separate fact from flack. You failed.
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They acknowledge that's the opposite of the skills and culture for reliably, consistently making the same car over and over, with repeatable, consistent results.
While their CEO has been very public about disagreeing with you.
Please cite a quote from anyone associated with Tesla that says they acknowledge they don't have the skills to reliably make cars.
Please cite a quote from Elon Musk or anyone associated with Tesla that says "they are especially incompetent compared to other automakers"
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It's got quite a lot of apps now but is still missing some of the big western ones like WhatsApp and Netflix.
You can side-load apps but they don't get updates if you do that.
Thing is that's just the view from the West, obviously they have all the Chinese apps on there and I hear they are very good in India and Brazil now.
Re: Hey, they have an app. One whole app (Score:2)
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Because every app in the Play Store is worth having, and none of them is a badly polished turd with more code for pushing adverts in your face than doing anything useful.
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You're right. One app, that costs $6/month, is WAY better than having all of the Android apps available.
I think I'll throw out my phone and just buy a Tom Tom. It would be so much more useful that way.
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Re:Brilliant, eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
What is this, the PR wing of the CCP?
No dude, this is news and [perhaps] marks the start of the decline in Google's relevancy in some markets.
The USA denied rocket tech to China in the early 80s. Guess what, they developed their own with Soviet help some say. They are now self sufficient to the extent that they can now shoot a satellite out of space.
With excellent graduation rates in the STEM field, surpassing a good number of advanced economies, China is now a leader in several technologies like AI, tunnel boring machinery, High Speed trains, Solar energy and science geared toward stemming desertification.
History will judge POTUS and his ilk as having done the USA a disservice. I am not impressed at all. POTUS should have led efforts to make the entre world dependent on US technology. He's doing the opposite, sad!
Re: Brilliant, eh? (Score:2)
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That must be why Huawei is having research doen by European universities. (The ink is barely dry on their latest deal.)
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Re: Brilliant, eh? (Score:3)
Agree with everything but the dependency part. I'm not a US citizen, so in (a small) part it's because of that.
But the main reason is different: dependency on any one single nation is not a good (global, species) survival and thriving strategy. It's essenyially success of some of us ("us"being humanity as a whole) to the detriment of others.
So, no. The POTUS did not did the US a service, but he unwittingly at least helped set the stage for a greater future for everyone. It's now up to someone else to make s
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Both Google and Apple are under threat now. With China threatening to ban Apple in retaliation for a ban on WeChat and other Chinese apps, as well as aggressive expansion into developing markets now really is not the time to be attacking American companies from within.
Not just China either, India is now copying the US with attacks on foreign apps and companies.
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This is an American web-site — erring on the anti-American side is a safe way to avoid both governmental prosecution and peer-disapproval.
Just like in the rest of the world.
Re: Brilliant, eh? (Score:4)
No, it's an ad for TomTom. For $13/year you can now access it on a Huawei device.
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Yes, it's Forbes which owned by a Chinese company "Integrated Whale Media". They are friendly to CCP.
Forbes is Chinese owned (Score:1)
... "Integrated Whale Media Investments" own 51% since 2014. Their beneficial ownership is by a family of, basically, loan sharks who are cozy with Beijing.
See, e.g. https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
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No. TomTom is a Dutch company. God knows the TFS barely mentions Huawei.
f-droid.org has all I ever needed (Score:5, Informative)
That they use map apps as an example is hilarious, OSMand is available for free and works just fine, also offline.
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yes and tom tom use apple iPhone data (Score:2)
tom tom do the routing and how many people are on a route for apple so iPhone users are contributing to their map...
Re: f-droid.org has all I ever needed (Score:2)
By the way, on F-Droid there's Aurora Store (and perhaps others), which can sideload any free app from the Play Store using anonymous login. In case you really need something that's not on F-Droid itself.
FreeHongKong1 (Score:2)
Haven't logged on in years maybe, but yeah f$$k that sCCP spy bullshit. FreeHongKong!
Mission accomplished (Score:2)
In 1989.
So now TomTom will report data to the CCP? (Score:1)
The US Gov't should not consider TomTom an agent of the CCP (because they are) and lock them out of any/all gov't hardware/software/facilities. The are enabling a communist dictatorship.
Latest mobile tomtoms are not briliant (Score:1)
They kept replacing and deprecating older mobile apps while losing features that made tomtom more attractive than google maps and enforcing subscription based model.
Tomtom lane assist sucks (Score:2)
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Maybe you should be grateful for having highways which are well enough designed and signed that you don't need any extra assistance to know what the best lane is.
Huawei phones banned yet? (Score:2)
Re: Huawei phones banned yet? (Score:2)
Here WeGo (Score:3)
I've had a 2800 mile journey across the US, 1500 miles in Morocco, 800 miles in New Zealand, 2500 miles in Australia and a few shorter journeys (e.g. 500 mile trips in each of California and Florida) all guided by offline maps in Here WeGo.
Not a chance I'd pay for TomTom.
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I don't know about you, but that sounds like quite the detour to me.
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Absolutely. But that's how you see geysers, desert oases, mountain gorges, salt plains, dinosaur fossils, four foot long lace monitors, alligators, elephant seals and wild apes.
Felt worth it.
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In other words... (Score:2)
China ownes Forbes. (Score:2)
Malware sh**hole (Score:4, Interesting)
how do you (Score:1)