After launching on Android as a Samsung exclusive back in August, Nokia has finally released Here maps on Google Play as a free download, allowing for much broader access.
Nokia’s HERE maps is one of their main areas of focus after selling their devices section to Microsoft last year. HERE is a worthy competitor to Google Maps, offering a more refined offline experience, and admittedly some fairly nice 3D building renderings in their mobile apps. There are some inconsistencies in some of their maps though and we’d love to see some Material Design in their app, although when we asked, they seem to want a consistent experience across both iOS and Android rather than a ‘Google specific’ design:
@JM77 thanks for the feedback! Material Design is very Google specific. Our focus is to bring the HERE experience to both Android and iOS ^J
— HERE Technologies (@here) November 25, 2014
Jason did a comparison of the two platforms earlier and showed them off :
Another part of the mapping that Here seems to be missing is the extensive ‘Street View’ information which Google Maps provides for almost every street in Australia. To their credit though, HERE Maps cars are currently hitting neighbourhoods around the country as we speak.
Note: A month after taking this shot, the Street View information STILL hasn’t been added to Nokia HERE maps.
The HERE Beta: Offline maps & nav application includes :
Maps that always work for you: Interactive maps of more than 100 countries that you can save and continue to use offline.
Choose the fastest transport option: Integrated public transport maps, directions and information for more than 800 cities in more than 40 countries.
Avoid delays: Real-time traffic and road closure information in more than 40 countries around the world.
Plan trips before you go: Personalise maps from your phone or here.com and store all the places you’d like see for when you get there.
Meet friends here and there: Glympse lets you share your location and what time you’ll get there by SMS or email.
Nokia have released a video to show you how to use HERE Beta Maps, which you can view below:
HERE Beta: Offline maps & nav is available for devices running Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) and above. It’s a free download, so if you’re interested, check it out now in Google Play.
Travelling in New Zealand recently, with limited data access, I found my CoPilot app did a fantastic job, apart from one new bypass. I’ll be buying the South America maps when I go to Argentina next year.
I have used Nokia Here for about a week in Melbourne in OFFLINE mode. I would have to say it’s on par with Google Maps. The Australia map download is about 800MB. It’s very useful in situations where you’re in the middle of nowhere without internet access like Caroline Springs. It’s also useful if you’re travelling overseas, because there’s like 50+ country maps you could download. However, you could also CACHE Google Maps and use it offline, but you can only cache small sections at a time. For example, you need to cache 5 sections of Melbourne. You can’t just… Read more »