This is huge: Free Navigation on your Nokia. Worldwide in over 70 countries.

by Volker Weber

Ovi Maps takes you where you want to be and shows you what you want see, with navigable maps for over 70 countries worldwide. All this with only one click. And it's all free.

This is huge on many levels:

Ovi Maps works quite well and it's pretty. However, they are going to offer it on ten phones only until they add new devices as they come to market:

ovimapsfreedevices.png

The N97 mini, but not the N97? Come on, Nokia. You have to do better. Also, Nokia has no immediate plans to bring navigation to Maemo. With the N900 you are out of luck. Bummer. I think we will have to wait and see what the next moves are.

This is certainly an inflection point. Google providing limited navigation on Android is one thing, but if Nokia goes in there in a big way, that is going to change the market forever.

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Comments

This Nokia website appears to indicate that many more phones (including the standard N97) are actually supported.

Johannes Wilms, 2010-01-21

The standard N97 needs a firmware update which is supposed to come next week/end of January.
http://www.symbian-guru.com/welcome/2010/01/ovi-maps-goes-free-for-some-devices.html

Marius Kallhardt, 2010-01-21

Johannes, Ovi Maps is supported on more devices for sure. Just not the version with free navigation.

Volker Weber, 2010-01-21

ACK, this IS huge. I was hoping for it but could not really believe it. Only shame is that I bought an N900 recently ;) ;)

Hubert Stettner, 2010-01-21

Has anyone found a statement from Google on this matter? They can, if they want, unlock Google Maps Navigation wordlwide in minutes.

Richard Kaufmann, 2010-01-21

It's the maps, not the software. Just look for the copyright notice in Google Maps. Google has not licensed turn-by-turn instructions from TeleAtlas. Nokia owns NavTeq, they can do what they want.

Volker Weber, 2010-01-21

Just tried it and first impressions are good
Now if only I could connect my Nokia to my 2002 Audi A4 with BOSE.
Sean

Sean Cull, 2010-01-21

Volker, I know. That's the point that makes it interesting. What will Google do? Buy a nav-licence? Unlock Google Nav anyway? Buy TomTom? Google is what Google does with the software, and not the software itself.

Richard Kaufmann, 2010-01-21

Looks like N97 will get support on Jan 28th from this,

http://discussions.europe.nokia.com/discussions/board/message?board.id=navigation&thread.id=16082

but pity E71 users, no dates yet. I have posted in their discussion and few people have already requested for it.

Senthil Kumar, 2010-01-22

Nokia comes through again.

Carole Ford, 2010-01-22

I am really impressed by this upgrade from 3.0.1 to 3.0.3 of Ovi map. The old ovi map was not very good on my 5800. But this new version is really fantastic and super fast compared to the old ovi map.

Ralf M Petter, 2010-01-22

Considering this news on golem.de, all S60 phones will get support for the new Ovi Maps until March 2010. By the way, can anyone tell me if it's possible to download let's say Europe in a whole on a SD-card? I can't really try it out at the moment due to lack of supported devices.

Regards

Mathias Ziolo, 2010-01-22

Mathias,

Europe has around 1.9 GB if I remember right .You can see the sizes in the maploader. There also is an unofficial (but still legal I suppose) way to download the maps directly from Nokias servers without having to use the maploader:

http://nokiamaps.moo.no

This is well known in the community and seems to be tolerated by Nokia. Why shouldn't it, BTW, as the maps itself used to be free anyway... Thinking about it I am not sure if this also is for OVI Maps 3.3.

Best regards,
Hubert

Hubert Stettner, 2010-01-22

Wow! Even my E90 works...if I can see the display through the dust!

John Ash, 2010-01-22

@Hubert:

Thanks for the link. I've never used the maploader because my E51 doesn't have built-in GPS. But after all that I'm really considering buying a bluetooth GPS-receiver if the new application will run on my phone.

Mathias Ziolo, 2010-01-23

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