Nokia's Ovi Maps headed to Windows Mobile and Android? (update: no way)
By Thomas Ricker 
posted February 25th 2010 8:25AM
posted February 25th 2010 8:25AM
Put your skeptic hats on kids 'cause we've got a juicy one for you. When Greig Williams, Nokia's General Manager for South East Europe, was asked by the German language Die Presse whether Ovi Maps would be coming to Android and Windows Mobile he responded very simply, "That will be the next step." Well then, that's pretty clear... but as much as we'd like to believe it, we simply can't pin our hopes to this statement alone.Remember, Nokia's motivation for making its Ovi Maps service free was to sell more handsets; not handsets from its competitors but high-margin smartphones from Nokia in an effort to boost its profits. And unless it can pump out the Android version before Google Navigation goes global, there won't be much motivation to download a presumably fee-based (it certainly won't be free) Ovi Maps on the platform unless Android users are willing to pay to have Nokia's localized maps on the device instead of downloading them over the air as the Google offering requires. Besides, is Nokia really going to dedicate staff to Android development when its more advanced Ovi Maps still aren't available on its much touted
Update: Nokia just got back to us with an unsurprising response: "have spoken to Greig and he absolutely didn't make that statement. As I understand it, this has now been, or in the process of being, taken down by the Die Presse journalist at their site." So much for that.
i really hope they do offer it for free on android/winmo but somehow i doubt they will as i cant see how they would make any money from it. I suppose it would push the brand awareness of ovi. any other ideas?
@nabberuk
OMG, I'm ready with MY NEXUS ONE!!
@nabberuk Maybe it's free offline maps but without voice nav. And $$$ from location aware adverts/search results and/or nav subscriptions. Google won't offer free navigation outside of the US anytime soon unless they buy teleatlas, will they?
@rhezaganteng well why use nokia on a nexus one? its best to stick with google apparture.
@nabberuk Ovi Maps (v3.03) that allowed free turn-by-turn navigation for the most of the nokia phones after 2008. And it's all for FREE. Something tells me, this one is a winner release from Nokia. Although, I believe they won't give this to other competitors, 'that easily' Latest: http://bit.ly/ovi-maps-real-performance
@nabberuk
I belive it will be free, then more and more users will download it, at last it will be the famouse mobile map in the world, so more ad agent will come to it!
Source: Die Presse
Interesting as they say it would be the next step. I am not exactly sure why would they do it. Keep it Nokia exclusive, like how itunes player, safari is on apple and google navigation on android.
Also, I agree, atleast make the application proper on Maemo/Meego. I have an N900 and even after the update, the maps software is pretty much unusable
@Cynical Hippie
Er...you can run Safari on Windows you know.
@Cynical Hippie
You can also barely run iTunes...if that's, like your thing.
It makes sense, it has nothing to do with brand awareness and all about selling search and advertising on Ovi maps.
The new frontier in search is local search and it seems Nokia isn't going to leave it all to Google and Microsoft.
Now you're citing an Austrian newspaper- what's up with engadget and Austira of late? I like it!
As for Ovi maps- I'm skeptic too but it would be nice. I just preordered a Desire and came home from a 2 day trip abroad Sunday where I used my N78 for navigation. Couldn't do that with the Desire, even if they did offer Google navigation, the data roaming would kill me. So Ovi maps for a sensible price would be nice.
Nokia made a blatant mistake by acquiring Navteq for 4,7 billion euros (about 7 billion dollars). They tried to get paying subscribers, but hardly anybody was willing to pay for their maps. Then they just had to release it free. Next step is to release it to everybody and try to make some money with advertising. It won't happen. Nokia is a mobile company, Nokia is not a software company or internet company. Take a look at Ovi - launched in 2007 and still beta-quality at best! Simple things like single sign took years to implement!
@jussipussi
Thought Navteq under Nokia umbrella have been making money all the time. 50 million euros in last quarter.
About this rumour... i don't think so. For Android? Maybe i can see that, but not for WM.
@jussipussi come on.. you keep hating Nok on Finnish and English tech blogs and you have absolutely nothing to add. If Nok implements ovi maps on android it ain't for charity.
P.S. you do realise your nick will be pronounced "juicy pus*y"?
Yeah hi, I already have Google's downright stunning navigation on my Android phone. I'm open to this, but just sayin' that Nokia needs to hit a hell of a home run to convince Android 2.x users to even consider it.
@Level 5
I'm currently using ovi maps and think it's loads better than googles version. I wouldnt go as far as saying a nav app is downright stunning either. It's errrr a map?
@Level 5
The smoking guns here really aren't the maps themselves on Android, but rather the way it integrates with Street View/Navigation/Voice Command. For instance, I'm in Columbia, MD. I can press one key on my phone, speak "Navigate to Verizon Center, Washington DC" ; it will get the info, and in one additional tap go to Navigation. If Street View is available at my destination, it will show me the approximate photo of where I'm supposed to end up. That's where Google Maps is most effective for my uses. When I had Windows Mobile, Bing Maps and Google Maps really didn't have any advantages over the other. It's the other tools that make it stand out.
@Level 5
just the ability to DL maps to your SD card or whatever is worth IMO.
the constant need to DL new info is not efficient at all.
@liquidmonkey
I'd concede that. Having maps on the SD card would be useful. But hey, we Android users are used to not having things installed the the SD card AMIRITE (no shits, Nexus One owner here)?! Also from reading other entries, Nokia's maps have alot more coverage than Google's. I guess we shall see.
@Level 5
google needs to improve a few things despite them having the cool options you mentioned.
1) downloadable maps
2) world wide coverage as roaming fees in europe are killer
until then, i'd say that OVI is the current winner but we all know google never takes a break so i'm expecting a new gmaps announcement by the summer at latest.
Ovi suite is currently available only for Windows - Nokia has not managed to build Mac or Linux version of Ovi suite. To me this tells me that Nokia is a device manufacturing company that does not understand software.
@jussipussi
so your saying a company who doesnt make there software product available for mac/linux is a company that doesnt understand software!!
thats actually pretty funny!
even if OVI never makes it to win7mo or android, the mere mention of this will spur even more competition in the mobile phone GPS turn-by-turn navigation market which ultimately means that google and MS need to release their respective apps NOW ;)
in the end, its you and me that win win win win win win win :)
It's great news for European and Middleeastern countries where Nokia Maps is freakin awesome and super accurate, and Google maps is nonexistent.
@TareG
!!! Indeed people seem to forget that Androids maps aren't free for anybody else than the North Americans and in Europe you got already larger smartphone market to start with already.
"downloading them over the air as the Google offering requires."
Ever heard of roaming charges? Especially in Europe people tend to travel to neighbouring countries.
This would definitely promote OVI Maps. I agree with fourthletter, that location based services are the future, and they are the next big form of advertising. Nokia want's a big peace of that cake, and has the means by owning over 40% of the global market. Going over to an other platform opens up a broader customer base.
I don't believe in the notion of people buying Nokia phones because of the free navigation feature. They buy them, because they are very good devices, and it won't hurt Nokia one bit to have one of their apps running on different handsets.
This on the other hand would be so beneficial for us costumers. First of all, here in Europe we don't get free Google Maps navigation with our Android devices. Second, Google Maps navigation is a great thing, BUT, and I write it with capitals for a reason, it depends on constant data transfer. That is ok in the US, because there you stay in one country with the same provider all along your trip. On the other hand here in Europe most trips you use a GPS device for really is not around the city, but going abroad. That means at the boarder you'll be switching to a foreign provider. Data transfer costs are ENORMOUS while roaming outside of you native country. Really, it's crazy, one of my friends went to London on a business trip, and over one weekend he racked up a $3000 bill just by checking e-mail and surfing a bit..
So for us Europeans the only sensible way to navigate is with downloadable maps on a native app. If Google where to introduce this option, they would eat the whole global navigation market with one big gulp. I think Nokia want's to prevent this from happening, and this is why they are thinking of bringing OVI Maps to other platforms.
Guys, this really isn't complicated. Google Navigation is useless in Europe, because no plans have continent-wide data coverage, and data roaming is very expensive. As you will only ever need navigation when you're away from your home network, you desperately need something with offline maps. I expect the same goes for the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Really, anything beyond the continental US and maybe Australia.
Nokia's paying big money to Teleatlas or whoever provides them with map data, and they might as well recoup some of that by offering a paid offline navigation service for other platforms. In the same way that Google provides pretty decent Gmail apps on S60 and J2ME. For Nokia, it would be not only a way to suggest to customers that a Nokia handset might provide a better native experience, but to popularize the Ovi store and encourage app developers to include S^3/Maemo in their porting plans.
A smartphone user in Europe will need some sort of offline maps app, and Nokia actually has more experience in making Ovi Maps work with smartphones than any of the standalone developers.
@Flasher T Ever tried Ovi Maps on Nokia N900? It's basically useless without data-connection. Sad, but true.
@jussipussi Didn't think Ovi Maps was even available for N900. I've used it on my N85 while travelling - load up the maps via Ovi Suite in advance, works just dandy without any incoming data.
@jussipussi thank you sir for providing a completely relevant response to what flasher T was saying.
obviously this isn't the same ovi maps thats on symbian right now. it still needs to be updated to match the symbian offerings right now.
@jussipussi, apart from turn-by-turn navigation, what does the Ovi Maps for N900 miss from the Symbian siblings? Sure thing, it's rough around the edges, but all the features that Ovi Maps 3 has on Symbian are there (except, to repeat, the turn-by-turn navigation and voice navigation). And you don't need data connection - you can preload all the maps using the same Nokia/Ovi Maps Loader as on Symbian. You need data connection only for searching, which I admit is a bit of a bummer.
@Flasher T
Nokia doesn't pay big money to anyone for their map data. They own Navteq, one of the two big players in world wide map data (the other one being TeleAtlas, which is owned by TomTom).
Which is why they can offer what they do, and why Google will have a hard time matching it.
The more maps the merrier.
Think about this: google already uses QT although AFAIK not with Android.. IF android were to support QT besides their Java thingy, porting stuff such as ovi maps would be just a matter of time.. and then the gap between MeeGo and Android would be thin(ner)..
Please head to iPhone too, via Cydia is fine.
i just read the referenced article in diepresse -
and cannot find a mention of what the author of this post claims.
rather the nokia guy is talking about nokia's asset in competing with google in navigation - having free ovi maps on their handsets, which dont require downloads so much as gmaps.
@shifzr on another note, diepresse is not the place to look for breaking tech news in austrian press usually ;)
"And unless it can pump out the Android version before Google Navigation goes global"
Google Navigation is going to have a hard time going global. Outside of North America, Google use Tele Atlas maps. Tele Atlas is owned by TomTom and there's no way that TomTom will let a rival offer a competing service for free.
Nokia are lucky that they use their own maps for the entire globe.
@xbit Here are two completely separate ways by which they can build maps of Europe free of licensing restrictions in a fairly short time:
1. If you open Google Maps in your browser, grab the little StreetView orange man and drag him all over Europe (hey, don't worry: he's not real, so he won't feel a thing), the parts of Europe for which Google has collected StreetView photos will glow blue. In December, these were just small patches in France and Spain. As I write this, now almost all Western Europe is covered. If, while going around in their Google-mobile shooting pictures, they've also mapped the areas they were visiting (with the help of a gps tracer), they'll soon have a complete, independently constructed map of Western Europe.
2. It's certainly within Google grasp to develop software that looks at the satellite images they have and recognizes streets and highways. As always using optical recognition sw, the result won't be perfect, but it could do 99% of the work so that Google's wetware will only have to do the remaining 1%.
Shame, but understandable.
Symbian's only real killer feature is OVI maps. It is pretty much the only OS that has a free maps app that can competently replace yer average standalone sat nav.
Damn europeans. Why did they call it "eggs?"
In other news: Ovi maps 3.04 beta is available for S60 3rd/FP2 and 5th edition:
http://betalabs.nokia.com/apps/ovi-maps-beta-for-mobile
New:
* book your hotels directly in the ovi maps (through HRS, currently only available in Finnland and Germany)
* Improved positioning speed and accuracy
* Map zooming with faster speed
* Improved search for cities with zoom out to city level