Disqus
Today is a historic day for America because you fine people are finally going to get access to Spotify. Looking to reciprocate the European gesture of good will, Google has announced that they’ll be bringing their live traffic feature in Google Maps to 13 additional countries: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Israel (ummm that’s not in Europe), Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Spain and Switzerland. Now if you own a car, which many Europeans do, but many also prefer to use public infrastructure since fuel prices are triple or quadruple what you pay in FreedomLand, then this is great. Combine the new traffic data with Google Navigation, currently only available on Android, and you’ve got yourself one of the most bad ass navigation devices on the market, not only able to tell you which roads to avoid, but also be able to locate points of interest and even give them a ring should you want to make a reservation.
To give Nokia some credit, they were the first to do this. Google may have been the first to make turn by turn navigation a free feature, but it didn’t take Nokia long to issue a press release saying that all future Symbian devices, and many current Symbian devices out on the market, would get turn by turn as well. Traffic data has been in Ovi Maps, now called Nokia Maps, for ages now, although it’s only now “live” with version 3.08, whereas before you’d get a snapshot of current traffic conditions once you hit the navigate button, but said snapshot wouldn’t be updated as you were on your merry way. Anyway, we’re just pointing out minor niggles at this point.
Besides navigation apps, what else do you use while road tripping? Hopefully you’re not checking your Facebook and Twitter networks while driving, but in all seriousness, when on the road is there an app you can’t live without? Drop a comment below, we’re interested to know, especially since many of us are soon going on holiday!
About The Author
Stefan Constantinescu
Stefan Constantinescu (@WhatTheBit on Twitter) has loved technology since as far back as he can remember. It started with computers, but in the past few years his passion has turned to mobile devices. As a mobile phone enthusiast who lives and breathes devices that connect to the internet, he knows he is not alone with this radical fascination of all things wireless. He is strongly opinionated and enjoys a good debate so leave comments in his posts and he’ll get back to you! Stefan began blogging as a hobby in the fall of 2006 and joined IntoMobile in the summer of 2007. Later he got a job at Nokia in March 2008, but as of June 2009 he has rejoined the IntoMobile team. He is currently based out of Helsinki, Finland.
