Nokia’s Ovi Maps 3.0 goes live, you need a PC (can’t use a Mac) to install it on your mobile
By Stefan Constantinescu on Thursday, July 2nd, 2009 at 12:22 PM PST In Applications, Nokia
Nokia (NYSE: NOK)’s Ovi Maps 3.0 just launched, and I’d love to tell you what it’s like, but I’m such a huge fan of Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Maps that I see no compelling reason to switch. For those of you living in nations that have expensive data plans, Nokia Maps is for you since you can preload maps. For those of you who need turn by turn navigation, Nokia Maps is for you. For the rest of you, the majority of you, just go to google.com/gmm on your phone, download, and enjoy.
Why all the negativity? You need to download a file on your computer, to install an application on your phone. How silly is that? Even more silly, the file you need to download to get Maps 3.0 on your device will only work with a PC. Sure Google Maps may not have “3D landmarks for over 200 cities, rotation, tilting, night view, and fly-overs and fly-throughs” or “enriched POI information by Lonely Planet, Michelin and Wcities, as well as a weather service that provides 24 hour and 5-day forecasts”, but the search works remarkably well and when I’m trying to find a bodega at 4 in the morning in a rough neighborhood, I want to see accurate results and fast.
“You need to download a file on your computer, to install an application on your phone. How silly is that?”
I would ask “how silyt is such remark” – you just do it once and you have it
no need to download it everytime you start the application – it takes NO TIME and you have it
additionally when you go abroad you will get bankrupt in no time trying to download the maps
…and the advantages of features … any comment are needless
I am very sorry to notice that the reviewer who should be objective is funboy promoting his belowed stuff rather than giving objective review
I have to disagree. Thanks for that important bit of info Stefan! I too own a Nokia and use a Mac for my personal computing needs, and can not tell you how frustrating it is to HAVE to use a PC to install or update things like this (I don’t even own a PC, or want to install a virtual machine on my Mac)! I too find this very vexing! @noname, he’s not trashing the service or your ‘precious’ brand/software/phone… I think that if you re-read his post you’ll notice that he’s just COMMENTING on a very big oversight on Nokia’s part. Oh, and please turn down YOUR “funboy” (WTF is a ‘funbot anyways?…) hypersensitivity.
Nokia maps is superior if you are in foreign territory since you can switch of the data usage on the nokia maps. Also Nokia maps have turn by turn Navigation (in the paid or cracked version) which is something google does not offer. i quite like version 3 of nokia or ovi maps but agree with Stefan that it is a sin to need a computer to download them. Why not do it over the air through the “successful”
Ovi store
Here is an alternative for downloading the maps (without a installation of any software on your mac or computer) http://diabo.110mb.com/symbian/indexmaps.htm
After extensive usage of both Google and Nokia maps in both desktop and mobile systems, I see only two reasons to use Nokia maps over Google’s. They may, or may not, be important for a particular user:
1) Nokia maps can be pre-downloaded and used offline
2) Nokia maps for Finland are better.
And then comes a huge list of Google’s advantages:
- Gmaps show approximate location (cell-based) when the GPS is not available.
- Gmaps work in all modern browsers on the desktop and in almost all mobiles. Nokia maps work only for particular browsers and phone models. Nokia maps do not even work in many Nokia phones, where Gmaps work!
- Gmaps can show public transport
- Gmaps load much faster
I have blogged about this here. My conclusion is: I always use Gmaps, except when one of the two above mentioned points is critical.
As for the Gmail being faster than Nokia Maps. This is all based on where on the planet you are and when you happen to have network access and if 3G is available at all. The older GSM based network is dog slow in most places here in USA, where the Cell Phone carriers have lagged behind in updating technology through the years.
Heaven help you if you happen to be in the middle of no where Wyoming, or Montana as you are going to be completely SOL when it comes to getting google service over the air.
Even in OKC I have seen much better response via Nokia Maps than via Google Maps. This is on an N97 on T-Mobile.