Last week I was in Ibadan and I tried to use Nokia map to navigate my way through the whole town and it was amazing to see old and new route been listed and mapped on the map although some area wasn’t listed by was laid on the map. So, it excites me when Nokia introduced HERE, the first location cloud to deliver the world’s best maps and location experience across multiple screens and operating systems. With the new brand HERE, Nokia aims to inspire a new generation of location services and devices that make the mobile experience more personally significant for people everywhere.
To further extend its location services, Nokia is launching a maps application for iOS under the HERE brand. Based on HTML5, it will include offline capabilities, voice-guided walk navigation, and public transport directions. The application is scheduled to be available for free download from Apple’s App Store in the coming weeks.
Nokia Lumia and HERE are naturally made for each other, providing the best location experience on a smartphone, but Nokia aren’t reserving HERE just for Windows Phone. Instead, they are opening it up to all devices and operating systems to give everyone, with any type of device, the possibility to recognize and the ability to use the best location platform in the world. This openness is what sets HERE apart from other digital maps in the world. And with HERE, location will be an even more powerful differentiation for Nokia.
Nokia further announced a strategic partnership with Mozilla to bring new location experiences to the Firefox OS. Nokia plans to debut a mobile Web version of HERE Maps for the new Firefox OS next year. The companies are working together to give people the best mapping experience on Firefox OS.
Nokia also demonstrated an Android OS-based reference application and announced plans for the availability of a HERE SDK for Android OEMs in early 2013. This is aimed at enabling partners to create location-based applications for Android devices with Nokia’s leading content.
To advance the 3D capabilities of HERE, Nokia announced the planned acquisition of Berkeley, Calif. company earth-mine. The company’s reality capture and processing technologies will become integral parts of HERE’s 3D map making capabilities.
Nokia expects the transaction to close by the end of 2012.
[Article source: Nokia Press, Image via Flickr: Dunechaser]
