Ovi maps out Google competitor

*Ovi maps out Google competitor

May I be the first to say "HAHAHAHAHAHA.. hhhaa.. BWAHAHAHA".. er, "good luck".

Nokia have two big things going against them here:

1) They have a tendency to bait-and-switch. So it'll be all great and free at first, probably working about as good as Google Maps; then the hammer will fall and it'll become paid . This is their history, and prior Nokia apps prove this out.

2) Nokia couldn't code their way out of a paper bag. Look at their current phones on the market - crap UI, crap physical design, christ they can't even code a decent phonebook transfer system - how do they propose making their existing mapping system good enough to work as a commercial app, let alone compete with Google or - I dunno - other GPS devices out there?

Best mapping and route planning experience some other time

It does not know anything but motorways in half of Europe. Even on motorways it does not know the junctions. Google knows all junctions, most minor routes even in Easterne Europe. For example it knows about the existance of the Belgrade ring road, Sofia ring road, Budapest ring road, etc. Ovi does not. As a result I spent 2.5h crawling through a traffic jam across the Belgrade city center and wondering "Ok, the GPS is plotting the road through here, why I do not see a single truck on it". Similar (though shorter) experience in Budapest.

It is also completely lost in Holland with their bloody split motorways where instead of rebuilding bridges and widening they have built a couple of lanes in parallel with the old one. In order to take the right junction in this spaghetti you sometimes have to switch to the "correct half" a couple of miles in advance. It is totally lost there as well.

Czech maps were also clearly substandard so trying to navigate the roadworks on the work-in-progress motorway between Prague and Dresden I ended up on some mountain roads instead.

Best mapping experience? Do not think so. I analysed the same routes on Google maps and in all cases it brought better answers. Same for using a proper Garmin GPS.

Best routing, my arse!

I recently bought a Nokia and used OM to get me from Brackley to Dumfries and Galloway via North Wales.

It's preferred routing from North Wales to D&G ended up taking me through one of the Mersey Tunnels. Worse still it was the one near the docks for some reason. Good job I wasn't in a hurry and was genuinely curious about the route.

Coming back it tried to do something similar but I stuck to my guns and held out for the M62.

North Wales to Brackley it didn't like me going through Wrexham. I've owned several navigators before and usually once you've ignored two requests they figure it out and all's great. Not OM. The predicted journey completion just crept up and up along with requests for me to turn off. Then /finally/ when I was nearly at Shrewsbury it figured it out and conceded that I would arrive at 10:30 after all. Up till then it had got to 11:45 in it's pointless attempts to take me away from the A5.

So..best routing? Not on yer bloody life.

Well...

I welcome competition. This will only force Google to improve their product.

http://TechReview.LIEconomy.com

Built-in obsolescence

Besides what everyone already wrote here about the routing, there is also the built-in obsolescence. Like they had done to the N96, their previous flagship phone, now Nokia drops support for all the rest of the S60 3rd edition and previous. While with android you can get Google maps in almost all phones (excluding some of the first less powerful ones), and won't feel shafted and pressed to spend another 500€ just one year after you bought that top of line phone.

If only google maps had a offline mode, like ovi maps, then it would be perfect. But until then, there is brut - just google for it.

Looks like a Nokia shill

is in the thread down voting all the naysayers...

Votes...

The way the comments are rated so far...hummm...is that you Elop?

Ovi Maps

I Live in NZ and I know where I am going. I'll bet this don't even know where NZ is and this and other new OVI stuff has appeared on my new phone time for the big delete and uninstall

I find Ovi Maps pretty good.

When I turn off for petrol or take a different route then it seems to instantly recalculate the route and send me merrily on my way. Never had a problem and use it all the time now. You can keep the rest of the bumf like cimena listings etc, if I want that I'll go to the cinema site and get the prices etc from there rather than just show times but to be honest I love Ovi Maps. Use it far more than Google Maps now.