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The Finnish mobile phone manufacturer is adding a map
service to its portal, Ovi. ‘Maps on Ovi’ comes as an enhancement to Nokia’s
social network portal which was designed as a place where Nokia users can share
the photo, video and music content of their phones.
The new service will allow the users to plan a route from
their computers, and then just synchronize it with their mobile smartphones.
The routes can be planned either for driving or for walking, making them a
perfect fit for finding tourist attractions in a new city.
In addition to that the users can also mark points of
interest using their phones, create a route connecting them and then upload the
route to the Ovi portal where it can be shared with their friends.
Unfortunately, for the time being the service is only available for the S60
Nokia phones, including the N and E series, but the company said it will try to
develop it for all types of phones in the future.
The addition of this service can also show Nokia’s
intentions of competing with Google but Nokia officials say that the company is
not looking for market share but only to make things easier for the mobile
company’s customers.
The service is supposed to be made ready this later this
summer. The clients will have to buy the maps database and also pay for
updates, which might mean a substantial growth in revenues for the company.
Last year Nokia acquired Navteq Corp. for about $8.1 billion
in cash. Navteq, based in Chicago,
is the largest maker of maps used in car-navigation equipment and has rights to
digital maps of 69 countries.
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