In a rather surprising move, Nokia at an event in San Francisco announced that they will be rebranding their mapping service and will be calling it Nokia HERE. The service will mostly remain the same but the struggling Finnish giant has brought about some cool new features thanks to the acquired street view mapping company Earthmine, the acquisition was also announced at the same event.
Nokia’s new Here cloud computing-based map service will deliver location data across operating systems, Chief Executive Officer Stephen Elop said at the event. It will create maps in real time based on current conditions, and show each person’s favorite places and routes, Elop said.
New Features with HERE
The cool new additions to their mapping service include features such as collections which lets you save locations to your Nokia account so you can quickly jump to them without having to search for them every time. The locations sync across devices after you log into your Nokia account.
Another feature is 3D maps, where you get a 3D view of several key locations around the world. This feature is identical to the Flyover feature in the new Apple Maps and the data is actually provided by the same company, C3 Technologies.
They’ve also added a maps editor, so users can now update street names and traffic information and the information will be added to the maps for others to see.
And the with the acquisition of the Earthmine, Nokia Maps or HERE has street view functionality now akin to what Google Maps has with its street view.
Cross-Platform Service
Nokia touted its “capture, compute, experience” system, which is said to combine both local and cloud-based computing. The method, Nokia says, offers faster local rendering, low-bandwidth requirements, and a more robust offline experience.
Nokia will also be providing the maps SDK to Android OEMs so they can integrate it within their apps. The iOS version of the HERE application will include turn by turn directions and public transportation information and is currently pending Apple’s approval. A web version for Mozilla’s upcoming Firefox OS will also be released next year. Here is also accessible through mobile web browsers.
