What's the one biggest hurdle to throwing out your dedicated GPS nav unit and going ahead with the free turn-by-turn navigation
offered by your smartphone? If your answer was that most phones don't have the great big screens or easy installation systems of some satnav devices, look out, because Nokia's about to shake up your world all over again.
Alpine has just announced its partnership with the Finnish giant aimed at integrating Nokia handsets -- complete with
free Ovi Maps navigation -- into car dashboard systems. Yes, that means you can use your superb six-amp speaker system to boom out music or voice nav instructions from the phone, as well as your in-dash 7-inch LCD for showing you the right way home. There's further interaction with widgets keeping an eye on your fuel levels and engine condition, leading to location-based services such as the phone notifying you of the nearest and cheapest petrol station. Connectivity is done over either USB or Bluetooth, and Nokia promises that this Terminal Mode will be showing up in its phones in the very near future. The sooner the better, we say.
posted March 3rd 2010 6:40AM
Man Nokia is hitting the market hard I guess Apple did accomplish one thing they got the Giants to wake up, and use there minds and all those patents they developed. This was something that I heard about when I first got in Europe around 2003 that Nokia wanted to do but shelved it.
@TheOne Nokia is determined to prove that not everything is about the OS. Apple, as much as it has created an ecosystem that gives them a competitive edge, still bases much of its success in the OS. In fact, the ecosystem is a consequence of the success rather than the other way around. As for Android, well, being designed as open source, cross company, leaves the ecosystem to the manufacturer that sports it on its handsets, making it harder.
Nokia will not beat its competition via OS power (even with S^3), but will rather have an OS strong enough to not be a weakness by itself (as is the case with S60v5 right now), but look for the competitive advantage with the ecosystem and added value beyond the hard+software combination.
@TheOne
Your comment was awesome and what Nokia and Alpine are doing here, I was thinking about last night.
Just one thing though...it's 'they're' not 'there'.
There is usually used with location. e.g. He is over there.
They're is the shortened version of they are.
If you insert 'they're' into your sentence, see how much more sense it makes?
Also, read up on 'their', it's another similar sound that kids these days stumble up on. :)
@TheOne Imagine if Nokia played by Apple's rules. Say they invent this way to connect your phone to your car's stereo deck. Most companies would patent it as "a method for connecting a mobile phone device to a mobile infotainment system." Apple would flash everyone a set of giant middle fingers and proceed to patent "a method for transferring information between two digital information systems" and then send a patent infringement notice to every tech manufacturer on the planed.
P.S. For all you guys saying that there is no way they can get a patent like that because it's way too broad, I refer you to Nilay's post on some of Apple's patents. Some of them are so far reaching, they could actually give John Candy a reach-around.
@Rem DX
It's not "they're" it's "their". "they're" is a contraction of "they are", wehreas "their" is a possessive pronoun
@Ericloewe thanks I love it when people try to say something smart about others to only make themselves look dumb. I am a tech lover not a English major actually only got a C :-( so leave the corrections to the editors they are the professional correctors.
Nokia, Connecting People and kicking Garmin in the nards
@brrip
Use of nards ftw.
@brrip
Comment of the week.
Did they say if they would run Symbian or Maemo (or whatever the hell its called now)?
@camroncake Ovi Maps runs both on Symbian3 and MeeGo...
@camroncake
Mee- Go.. gedit? Ha.
another reason why i should have went Nokia. now have to wait 18 more months until plan finishes
@oringal
Another reason not to sign long contracts.
@dansus Another reason to NOT sign contracts in Canada. You boys have 24 months, we have 36 months up north. Once my contract is up, I'm never going back.
I'm not so sure that what they're claiming about screen sizes is really accurate. Certainly before touchscreens it would've been, but most touchscreen phones have at least a 3-inch display, while the most popular, low-end navigation units aren't much bigger. Smartphones with small displays strike me as a uniquely Nokia-centric problem these days, and this as a Nokia-centric solution rather than a selling point in itself.
Like in the new Star Trek movie!
@Chefgon : Going off topic but it bugged me that in the movie the Nokia Tune, of all things, survived the third world war. I'd rather lose all music (Beastie Boys and all) if that's the alternative.
It's great to see this kind of innovation from Nokia. They have the resources and the reach to do this kind of thing, and now it looks like they've also got the vision and the will.
They're an easy company to knock, and the work they have to do to be 'cool' is greater than that of Apple for instance (if you live outside the US, I'll bet your mum's got a Nokia), but this is certainly the way to go about it. For a while now, and Apple get the credit for this one, phones have been as much about the ecosystem (the apps, the maps, the media store) as they have been about the hardware. This is obviously now getting through to Nokia, and they're meeting the challenge well.
Delighted to see it!
Wow. Somebody fed Nokia some scooby snacks.
This is actually a lot more interesting and exciting than the Skype stuff.
Great! Thanks, /////ALPINE !!
Haha nice job photoshopping the interior from the new 918 Spyder.
Way to go, Nokia is constantly pulling rabbits out of its hat putting Apple in shame.
Nokia has been innovating constantly and outpacing all other handset manufacturers since last year.
the problem they faced was that they left the car go too far away into some weird road but now they are back on track...
kudos nokia.
@Mr w00t but nokia phones are not smartphones right engadget?
This is great. Now if only the auto makers installed a basic multi touch display with some kind of standard interface you could just use any phone you wanted in any car.
@emax BMW is currently actually developing just that type of instrument. They where talking about a system to allow seamless integration of phone peripherals with the in-dash center regretfully I doubt it will ever reach the states.
Wow, this makes the announcement of the C5 even greater. With a £129 pretend "smartphone", the output from the measely 2.2" screen would be output to something about 7" while driving. Great.
Oh yeah. I'll feel like a young James T. Kirk!
Excellent. I want a new car with this stuff, so freakin cool!
Nokia is coping the Ford SYNC idea and implimenting it with Alpine, poorly I might add?
So now you need to buy a Nokia smartphone, an Alpine console to be installed in your car's dash. Or you can buy a Nuvi for a few hundred bucks. Cost scale is very lopsided here. Unless an Apline dash unit is standard in a car it probably will not reach near as many consumers as a Nuvi.
Ford SYNC with its open API for all external devices is a superior business modle to this Apline/Nokia partnership.
@wenuell And Symbian and Maemo aren't open? Also you can't take Ford SYNC with you when you're walking or to another car. The phone GPS would still work connected to the car head unit or not.
@wenuell Does Ford Sync syncronizes with your email of choice and pushes that mail to you?
Does it let you download DRM free music from a online store? Does it let you make skype calls on the go? Calendaring? Browsing? Multitasking? And more importantly... Can you just drop those horrible Ford models for something less gas guzzling?! say... volkswagen or renault?
Well, I think you know where to go next mate :)
@wenuell
With FORD Sync you are stuck to buying a new Ford - with this one you can use it on an existing car or any other new car, doesn't have to be a Ford. So in that aspect this is more open that Sync.
This is fantastic, but as a new N900 purchaser I am quite annoyed that Maemo hasnt been updated with the latest Ovi Maps. The standard Ovi Maps N900 users get does not even allow "landmarks" to be saved. No proper routing and def not free navigation. Seeing as how I just left S60 5th to Maemo, I feel like i might have made the changeover too quick.
@saladin Yes... this is a let down...
Lets hope that by building the next version of Ovi Maps with Qt it will be released for us as well...
Lets hold hands and pray for Nokia and if everything goes wrong lets ask Engadget to bash them... I mean, continue the non-stop bashing.
Why Alpine?
I get the fact that they make good quality stuff but I feel that some of their stuff is too over priced.
They should, in my opinion, work with all the After-market head units out there.
I've had a Pioneer that I loved and now I'm using an Eclipse.
Why not just work with everyone?
I'm sure Nokia has the resources to do so.
@MFK well, you have to start with someone and when engineering something new it helps that they're not idiots AND don't have the pressure of the company failing or not if it ships or not, which skews honesty in particularly regards to quality and sharing of work and decisions.
when the tech is done and buyable - real world standardised to work - others can make their own hookups, with nokia/alpines help or not. kirf studios gotta produce something and if it sells they'll produce.
BTW if any of you were lucky enough to be selected to attend the Nokia invitation-only event during MWC 2010 or CES 2010 you would have seen it in action. Blows Sync out of the water ;-)
Not to detract from the discussion or anything, but I can't be the only one who thinks (and sometimes reads) "Ovine", i.e. sheep, everytime I see a headline about Ovi Maps... can I?
Granted Ovi is probably a Finnish word with some deep contextual meaning that makes it the obvious choice for map app name, but still... In the english speaking world it'll always be almost sheep, at least to me.
@beavertank Ovi = door/gateway in Finnish.
Yw.
Nokia had to go with someone that is respected and innovative around the world for car audio. Nokia is number 1 in cell phone sales. Why would they go with anyone generic. in this venture? They went with another quality manufacturer.
Btw, all of you bragging on the Ford Sync and bashing this decision of partnership. Who makes the sync system? I'm sure it's not Ford. I own a town car with a drab factory deck and disc changer combo. Guess who made the whole setup for Ford? ALPINE!!!
Nokia needs to improve the GPS lock on speed first.
My Honda factory Alpine GPS took as little as 5 seconds to get my position while my N97 took easily 5~10 minutes to get signal.