Nokia Maps 2.0 preview - Four Steps forward and One Step back

[Rafe]

Steve Litchfield has been putting in the miles and paces to test Nokia's new beta of Maps 2.0. Maps 2.0 premiers the pedestrian navigation mode and has significant upgrades to the driving mode too. What's new, what's improved and what's been removed? It's all here in this in-depth, illustrated preview.

Read on in the full article.

why is it impossible to have the map displayed in driving direction when you in normal driving mode,, this mean if you don't have an route planned you would like to have the map in driving direction not north and south as it is today..

on garmin and tomtom and wayfinder for nokia e90 this works fine but not on nokia maps !!!!

So Nokia maps is becoming more of a paid service and less of a reason to buy a Nokia phone?

At this rate the cheapest way to keep a satnav up to date is to buy a cheap dedicated one, sell it on Ebay after 12 months and put the money towards a new one.

I won't be doing monthly payments.

[PaulyLaw]

Steve, Interesting last point about TomTom, Co-Pilot, etc, being concerned about their S60 future. It is not unreasonable to consider a kinda "Microsoft Internet Explorer" anti-competitive situation in the future where a dominant Nokia are viewed as using their market position to stiffle competition in other areas.

Potentially Nokia are in an even more difficult position to negociate from, MS got in so much trouble for giving IE away, Nokia are directly generating revenue from navaigation licences for Maps, etc.

This is not necessarily an issue at present, but in a world 5 - 10 years down the road, when mobile devices have possibly replaced traditional computers for everything from business functions, nagavigation, entertainment and even paying for your shopping, Nokia (and Symbian generally) could be viewed as having an unfair advantage.

Maybe more than TomTom need to be concerned?

[neilhoskins]

A couple of comments on comments.

I don't understand the comment above about driving direction. My v1 of Maps always shows me where I've come from at the bottom of the screen and where I'm going to at the top. If the phone is "upright", of course. In other words, not north/south as you describe. I presume that the clever thing with the new version is that this remains true no matter how you hold the phone.

@Pauly: from the comment immediately above yours, it seems that the monopoly scenario isn't really an issue because a significant number of people are sufficiently bloody-minded to go out and pay £120 for a standalone TomTom rather than pay the £50 (or whatever) for a Nokia Maps subscription.

Also, WRT TomTom and the others being worried, maybe they saw the writing on the wall ages ago and that's why TomTom have, apparently, been putting no development effort into S60.

[elp]

The free route planning feature is still there in the new version but Nokia have hidden it so well and made so incredibly convoluted and counter-intuitive that virtually nobody is going to find it.

To plan a route, you first need to look for your departure point and display it on the map. Then click the joystick and, in the menu, choose "Add". In the sub-menu that appears, choose "To route".

This will open a new window called "Route". From there, select Options -> Add stopover and select your destination point (either by selecting it from your saved places or looking for an address).

You will now have 2 places displayed in the "Route" window. The departure point will be identified with a blue flag. The destination point will be identified with... a blue flag (although those with a good eyesight will notice that it's got a different pattern).

You can swap these 2 places selecting one, pressing the joystick, selecting "Move", using the Up/Down keys to move it up or down and selecting "Select" once you're done (pressing the joystick won't do it here, you *have* to press "Select").

You can also add additional stopovers by selecting the appropriate option in the "Options" menu (this is a new feature in Maps 2.0 and a quite nice one).

You're now ready to calculate the route. Go to the "Options" menu, select "Show route" and away you go.

Once the route is displayed on the map, use the Up and Down arrow to go from one turn to the over. The map will rotate accordingly. Use the Right or Left arrow to "escape" from the route and scroll around.

I couldn't find any way to exit from the route planning feature other than clicking "Back" repeatedly until you're back to the point before you started to plan your route.

You don't have to reflash firmware to remove Beta version, but carry out "hard reset" with *#7370#

[tkao2025]

Sorry, but after using the new updated version of Nokia Maps, IMO the google map is still more user friendly. For some obscure reason, I find that Google seems to lock onto a satellite faster than Nokia Maps.....could that be possible Nokia Maps takes so long to load and find a satellite...at the same time searches take longer than Google.

There is a huge problem with nokia maps 2 in the USA/Canada market.

In nokia maps 1 there was a license for USA + Canada which is a C class catagory (for pricing) as well as USA which is a B class catagory.

Well beta 2 does not have the USA + Canada catagory... which I purchased, so I cannot use my license in beta 2 and after 5 days of talking on the phone with nokia... they pull the BS "oh sorry its Beta software and we cant help you" card, instead of switching my license to USA only license.

I did not understand well if any search needs a connection or only those for the POIs. In the first case, consider that if you have a contract with a carrier in your own contry, this contract is in general not valid abroad. So you had to pay a much of money for data transfer. I do not think this could be a great idea.

Umberto

I do like the daily pay option, but I'm disappointed in the loss of the 3-year license option, as well as the option to easily route maps for free. At least here in the US, the phones are quite expensive ($600 for the N95-3), so having to shell out yet another $100 per year (basic GPS units can be had for $150-200) is a bit of a turnoff. Nokia should really include at least one year of routing for the basic selling price if they want to move phones in the US.

As for routing sans real time navigation, it could be useful, particularly if I'm reasonably familiar with the area but am not 100% sure where to go beforehand. IOW, it would be nice to be able to use Nokia Maps like MapQuest.

Something else for Nokia to consider is that Apple is likely to add GPS support in the next iPhone. If they get people hooked on a free or low-cost "iMap" or "iGPS" program, then it could undermine Nokia Maps' pricing.

I am not sure if adding pay to use software in firmware is a good thing. Maybe I would like to use a different software for routing but I can't remove this app from my firmware. You pay for the phone so why dont you get the software that it comes with included in that price? When I install Vista or XP it doesn't waste my hard drive space but installing Office which I would then have to buy to use.

Nokia is welcome to make software for people to buy but including it on all phones is a different matter. I don't think it helps competition either - sure people can buy different software but most will just stick with what there.

When ever I have tried to use Maps its been a pain compared to my Tom Tom.

Routing needs a touch screen.

[slitchfield]

Regarding the 'searching online' bit - it seems that at least basic addresses can be searched offline and navigated too. The 'online' bit is for other map data types. But more experimentation is needed as and when Maps 2.0 matures and gets finalised.

I've been using maps for nearly a year now on my N95, I paid for a years sub to Western Europe and have used it in the UK, Netherlands, Germany and France. The fact that I have GPS on hand outweighs the extra usability of the stand alone devices like tom-tom and that was before the new walking mode which I put to good use last week. The city guides while not essential have proved easier than carrying about a guide book which I always seem to leave in a local bar.

For the people who moan about the costs, when did everything in life have to be free ? Nokia's subscription rates were fair, especially the option to pay for short periods of time if you were for example visiting and the only negative comments I have, are that they seem to have withdrawn the Europe option from the licensing. However unlike the gentleman with the USA, Canada issue my license transferred across 100%. Maybe he should take the plunge and just try it !
I also wish the subscription rate were published on the web, rather than being displayed on your phone when you go to purchase.

Maybe my next car will have sat-nav built in but until that point Nokia maps will do me great and makes me think twice before changing to another brand at upgrade time (although maybe that's the plan)

[slitchfield]

The rates ARE on the web - http://europe.nokia.com/A4743140

8-)