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Nokia’s Here Maps Sold for $3B to Audi, BMW and Mercedes
- collyw 11y agoDoes anyone know what the implications are for the phone application? Its default map application on the Ubuntu phone, and although its missing some features, its quite nice overall.
- Aoyagi 11y agoAs someone who is using both HERE maps and Ovi maps on my smartphones, I wondering that as well.
- omgtehlion 11y agoIt is default maps application on Windows Phones too (at least that were nokia, now lumia). And for me it is the best maps app working offline.
- 5h 11y agoosmand does a good enough job for me, used it recently on a cross-european motorcycle trip. edit: i should have been clearer, osmand isn't just "good enough" - it is brilliant.
- CmonDev 11y agoThey failed to release to Windows Phone, though.
- ce4 11y agoI'm also a huge fan of OsmAnd, it has many outstanding/unique features that other map solutions neglect to offer (albeit some features are a bit hidden). In no particular order, things that I like: - Wikipedia (offline). Discover articles by location - Topographic maps (nice for hiking) - speed camera warnings - completely free & open source - you can alter the options, add your own POIs, etc. - draw tools, use polylines to measure distances - find any POI by name, category or location (they're *all* indexed) - copy a position's latitude/longitude to the clipboard - start route from a distant starting point (instead of current location) - discover opening hours of shops/etc. - launch calls from a POI's attached contact number - public transport (nice for city trips) - GPX logging - tools to support OpenStreetMap editing - route along saved .gpx/.kml track - ... While it had been available exclusively for Android for a long time, there's now an iOS version as well. EDIT: Formatting PS: In the past I've even gone so far as to add phone numbers to my favourite pizza deliveries on OpenStreetMap to be able to call them using OsmAnd.
- heifetz 11y agoI generally find the quality of built-in GPS maps in cars to be quite inferior to the quality of google maps. Is this company really worth 3B? who knows, but the car manufactures could probably just licensed google maps for free and focus on building great cars instead.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- pavlov 11y agoGoogle Maps is free to consumers, but that doesn't mean corporations can license the data for free. Google would expect something in return -- user data, Android Auto installations... HERE [1] is the same way. You can access their maps for free on the web or through the apps: https://www.here.com https://www.here.com But if you're building a product that needs to incorporate maps, HERE will certainly charge you for it. [1] I hate this all-caps spelling, but it looks confusing without it.
- dr_faustus 11y agoIt might be surprising to some people in Silicon Valley but there are folks who find it a bit disconcerting that Google knows every place they drive to, when they do it and how long they stay. I personally am glad that there is still some competition in the maps market and since HERE is a European company, you can expect them to be much more privacy conscious than Google (or Bing Maps, ftm).
- dylanjermiah 11y agoWhat nefarious use of the data will be beneficial to Google?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- madez 11y agoGoogle can be hacked or forced by public authorities to enable or to do nefarious things. I know, godwin’s law, bla bla, but look what happened during the second world war to german companies. There are more examples. I’m not okay with being tracked, and I don’t care whether the tracker swears to be or not to be evil. And no, this is not negotiable.
- StringyBob 11y agoOr invest $1bn in enhancing the already good openstreetmap dataset?
- Aoyagi 11y agoWhile I love OSM (both the map and the project), I don't think they have enough data (depth) to provide any navigation/routing. Or I'm missing something.
- Brakenshire 11y agoFWIW, where I am, the quality of the OSM dataset is way beyond what you need for routing. OSMAnd and Scout are my go to navigation apps. Anywhere which is vaguely rural, you really have to have confidence that all your map data, and your routing capability, are available offline. You can't beat having the map of the entire country on your phone.
- gothenburg 11y agoI have been using OSM on Android for a while (through OSMAnd) and I disagree with you. OSM has the most complete and updated maps I have ever seen compared to Google Maps and Nokia HERE. And it has much more POI registered as well. My only issue is that the UI of the Android app is not that good and efficient when compared to HERE.
- ce4 11y agoThe UI got a major overhaul recently (switched to material design) which made some things nicer. I also saw/see the UI as a problematic part of OsmAnd however I recognize it's not easy to pack all the features OsmAnd offers into a GUI and both please beginners and expert users.
- detaro 11y agoBiggest problem with OSM is that quality is varying wildly. Awesome in many cities, but then in rural areas it can be missing half a town. And large differences between countries. A lot of money could possibly help to get good base maps into it (by paying enough that their producers accept OSM licensing), which could help that situation...
- bluepostitnote 11y agoWhat happens to the employees with a joint ownership like this? In other words, who runs the technical side of the house and determines the future course of the product.