Entering the market of TomTom and Navicon, Nokia has announced to make their Mapping software free for download.
As announced earlier while discussing this for the Nokia N95, the mapping and routing is available in over 150 countries with turn by turn navigation (at street level) available in 30 countries.
From the press-release:
Nokia today announced that it is making its smart2go mapping and navigation platform, available for free download (www.smart2go.com), enabling millions of people to use the most comprehensive map coverage offered on a mobile device. The platform allows for mapping and routing in over 150 countries and has support for full turn-by-turn satellite navigation in over 30 countries. The application allows people to view where they are on a map, search for points-of-interests (POI) around them and create routes to get them there free of charge. Nokia plans to start offering the smart2go application for free, on Saturday, February 10th, for selected Nokia S60 and Windows Mobile 5.0 devices initially and has plans to roll out support for most of the major mobile OS platforms including Nokia S60, Series 40, PocketPC, Linux and other Windows Mobile devices.
Nokia plans to pre-install the smart2go mapping and navigation application on all future Nokia Nseries multimedia computers under the name “Nokia Maps”. Current owners of Nokia devices may also download Nokia Maps to their supported devices. And now, by paring your non-GPS enabled mobile device with a Nokia Wireless GPS Module LD-3W or other compatible GPS module, Nokia Maps can provide the same fantastic navigation experience for a broad range of Nokia devices.
The platform contains over 15 million POIs that help people explore the most interesting sights, restaurants or accommodations around them. Customers can select their favorite locations and send them to friends by multimedia message, Bluetooth wireless technology, infrared or e-mail. They can also send map excerpts and routes or save map screen shots to the gallery on the device. Recognized brand names like McDonald’s will have the option to place branded icons across the world’s digital maps downloaded onto millions of mobile devices.
Ow! Nokia is making a big move here and this for sure will strengthen their already strong leading position.
Where SonyEricsson is still fiddling with music, Nokia sees the possibilities of Mapping and Navigation in combination with a large scale of related services and even social-networking possibilities!
Bravo!
[found through All about Symbian]