Nokia Maps 2.0 Leaves Beta

NOKIA PRESS RELEASE May 22, 2008

Drive, Walk and Discover the updated version of Nokia Maps

Updates include enhanced pedestrian navigation, new satellite images and support for integrated compass orientation

 Espoo - Finland, Nokia today announced that its highly anticipated update for Nokia Maps has left beta stage and is now ready for consumers to download.

Downloaded over 240,000 times since announced in February, Nokia Maps 2.0 has improved its optional Car Navigation, enhanced its pedestrian navigation, added multimedia city guides, now offers satellite images, and is sporting a redesigned user interface. Nokia’s mapping and navigation solutions give people navigation features, local content and world maps directly on their mobile device, in a way that only connected devices can.

A partial list of the updated features in Nokia Maps 2.0 includes:

DRIVE:

• Improved optional Car Navigation equals PND-level car navigation experience with faster routing.
• Easy-to-use, updated User Interface features including a new navigation carousel with pre-defined navigation views - i.e. navigation, arrow, bird-eye.
• Top-of-the-line navigation features: signposts, multi-stop route planner.

WALK:

• Optional pedestrian navigation efficiently walks you from A to B with visual guidance. It helps you to locate yourself by giving information about the surrounding buildings, streets and parks and, if the device supports it, notifies the direction you are walking.
• Nokia Maps 2.0 includes public transportation information (station entrances) data in 17 cities with localized icons for stops.
• Advanced multi-sensor positioning using A-GPS, and pedestrian orientation using the compass feature (Nokia 6210 Navigator needed for built-in compass usage).

DISCOVER:

• Satellite images with hybrid rendering overlays for selected cities worldwide provide real aerial views on your mobile.
• Signature “one-box search” allows you to search through places, addresses, restaurants, nightlife, outdoor, accommodation.
• New premium multi-media city guides including features photos, video, audio streams.

Nokia Maps 2.0 uses vector maps provided by Navteq and TeleAtlas, Nokia Maps now has maps covering over 200 countries, with over 70 of them navigable. Maps can be downloaded over the air directly to selected devices or by using the Nokia Map Loader on a PC.  A new beta version of the Nokia Map Loader is available on the Nokia Betalabs web site.

Nokia Maps 2.0 and the current commercial version of the Nokia Maps Loader is freely* available for selected devices. For download and more information, please visit http://www.maps.nokia.com.

Nokia and the Missing Nseries Features

If you own a high-end Nseries handset like the N95, the N82 or the old but much revered N73, its multimedia capabilities might have electrified you time and again. After all, Nseries devices are known for their fabulous cameras, stereo speakers and multi-tasking capabilities. With the debut of each Nseries handset, Nokia does a good job of raising the bar. For instance, take a look at the upcoming N78 specs. It has everything you might need: a 3.2MP camera, a 1200 battery, extended playback capabilities and, last but not least, an FM transmitter. The same can be applied to the upcoming N96 which would make many people happy with its expanded video recording capabilities.

As an Nseries fan, however, I think these aren’t enough to create a perfect handset. In other words, Nokia should also go beyond the so-called multimedia-specific features in order to be able to convince Windows Mobile and UIQ users to gravitate toward Nokia handsets in general and toward Nseries smartphones in particular. What are these features, you might ask. Let me explain a bit.

A good keyboard, please

I’d be happy if someone can solve this riddle: why hasn’t Nokia built a single Nseries handset with a standard keyboard so far? Put differently, what’s wrong with, say, an N82 with a side-mounted sliding keyboard? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean all Nseries handsets should have QWERTY keyboards – many individuals might not like such devices. However, with so many customers and with such a wide range of Nseries handsets, it would be a good idea to equip a few of them with such a keyboard. Now some Eseries handsets do have my desired keyboard, but the problem is that they are either expensive (like the E90), or they don’t have the features you might like to use upon selecting a handset. Even the E90 doesn’t give you dedicated music keys along with the best camera and a 3.5 mm audio jack despite its astounding price tag. Furthermore, many Windows Mobile handsets offer on-device keyboards, so Nokia should bridge the gap in this regard.

To sum up, I’d like to see a few Nseries handsets with standard keyboards in the future. It’s up to Nokia to come up with a good design for such devices, but I don’t think Nokia would face difficulty achieving this goal given its ample experience with Eseries smartphones.

Micro-USB charging

I don’t necessarily want this feature to avoid moving a charger around, but it would be handy to re-charge the battery whenever I connect my handset to the PC via the micro-USB cable. Imagine being able to re-charge your battery when you transfer music to your handset or when you start updating your firmware. Again, I don’t think Nokia should bend over backwards to implement micro-USB charging in its Nseries handsets because the market offers a good number of accessories which enable handsets to be re-charged this way.

On-device document editing

Do you think those who buy expensive Nseries handsets don’t need to edit or proofread documents? I know that it’s perfectly possible to purchase a Quickoffice license to make Nseries handsets capable of editing MS Word and Powerpoint documents, but who wouldn’t thank Nokia for offering a full-fledged copy of Quickoffice with Nseries handsets? I don’t think all Nseries handsets should offer this feature, but offering a few devices with built-in document editing would generate a good deal of awe and admiration in the community. Even giving away a Quickoffice copy similar to what can be found on the E90 is enough to improve the status quo. This makes a lot of sense if we see an Nseries handset with a QWERTY keyboard, and Nokia can use something like OfficeSuite apart from Quickoffice.

Enhanced audio recording

Without a third-party application like ALON Mp3 Dictaphone, my N82 fails to record audio files in MP3 format. What’s more, the WAV files it records have a ridiculously low bit rate. These are, I believe, Nokia’s faults because Nseries handsets are already capable of producing artistic video files with a perfect audio quality. Now why can’t the built-in sound recorder produce high-quality audio files? Nseries handsets should be designed with audiophiles in mind, too. On the other hand, why can’t Nseries handsets record beep-free conversations when an increasing number of call recorders can remove beeps? Finally, don’t you think the rather old N93 shouldn’t remain the only Nseries handset with two microphones?

To put it in a nutshell, I believe Nokia does a good job of catering to customers’ varied needs with its Nseries and Eseries handsets, but a lot more should be done to create feature-rich handsets if Nokia wants to gain more market share and force existing users to stop thinking about migrating to other mobile operating systems. The nice point is that Nokia has everything it needs to implement the aforementioned features.

JoikuSpot Light Updated to V2.0; Leaves Beta

The free and secure mobile HotSpot solution, JoikuSpot Light was just updated to V2.0 without carrying the “beta” tag. This popular application turns Nokia phones to a WLAN HotSpot. When switched on, laptops and iPods can establish instant, secure and fast WLAN connection via smartphone’s JoikuSpot HotSpot using the phone’s own 3G internet connection. Multiple devices can connect to JoikuSpot in parallel and seamlessly share the same 3G internet connection. You can use JoikuSpot to access internet everywhere.

Release notes

• Landing page works with all operators.
• Encryption support with WEP including 128bit key generator.
• Battery threshold shutting down the client when battery level is too low.
• Default Access point setting.
• Support for secure SSH tunnels with Putty.
• GPS location with Google Maps (integration for extended mapping services at joikuspot.com landing page).
• All settings can be adjusted after JoikuSpot is stopped, just press the Stop key.
• Please uninstall the previous version before updating your JoikuSpot.

Help the Guys behind Nokia Beta Labs

If you are one of those who have downloaded at least one of the applications developed by Nokia Beta Labs, you know what a huge asset this service is. Its inaccessible applications aside, the beta labs is an excellent link between Nokia and its customers. Anyway, if you want to help this service become even more useful, take a look at this page and send your comments till May 30^th. The people behind Nokia Beta Labs want to make important changes into the web site and the feedback system, and are therefore looking for your suggestions and opinions.

Nokia Software Updater Down for a Day

Nokia just announced that the software update service will be down for 24 hours this weekend (from 17 May 19:00GMT to 18 May 19:00GMT). The announcement follows.

“There will be a planned maintenance break this weekend, during which time the Nokia Software Updater service will not be available. During the maintenance break, customers attempting to use the Nokia Software Updater will see the message “Connected phone not supported”. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.”

I’m glad we were notified, but I’m not sure how many people actually see this brief notice before attempting to update their handsets this weekend.

Best Blacklist Updated to V2.00

SmartphoneWare’s popular S60 3^rd Edition application, Best Blacklist, was just updated to V2.00. The following enhancements can be found in this accessible application update:

• Autostart blacklist service (if it was activated) after phone reboot was added.
• Now all blacklist views support dynamic screen size change / rotation correctly.
• The problem with rejected calls log clearing is fixed.
• Now available in English, Russian and Chinese.
• Symbian Signed.

Best Alarms Updated to V1.03

SmartphoneWare just updated Best Alarms for S60 3rd Edition to V1.03. The listed new features and bug fixes for this accessible application are modestly short this time:

• Workdays configuration dialog added.
• Some minor improvements.
• Symbian signed.

Personally speaking, I hope SmartphoneWare updates my favorite applications like Best Call Recorder, Best TaskMan and Best Dictaphone quite soon.

Nokia Communication Center Updated to V1.02

Nokia beta labs just updated Nokia Communication Center to V1.02. This 8MB Windows application helps you

• Create and send messages easily.
• Receive, view, forward, and reply to messages as they arrive.
• Compose multimedia messages effortlessly with easy access to the images on both PC and device.
• Manage messages, and sort and group them to quickly find what you are looking for.
• Display all your messages in a timeline.
• Manage all the contacts stored on your device.
• Add new contacts with ease.
• Create contact cards complete with thumbnail images.

Nokia Communication Center requires Nokia PC Suite 6.86.90 or higher, and is compatible with all Nokia S60 handsets.

Nokia Music PC Client Launched

A couple of hours ago Nokia beta labs released Nokia Music PC client V1.5. This application is aimed at expediting the process of transferring music to Nokia handsets or any MDP-compliant device. Currently the N95 Classic, The N95 8GB, the N82, the N81 and the 5610 XpressMusic are mentioned as compatible handsets with more smartphones to follow soon. Nokia Music PC application can also connect users to Nokia Music Store to help them purchase and try the tracks they want more easily. The application size is about 63MB, and I’ve not yet tested its compatibility with Windows screen readers.

Total Recall Gets an Update, Sort of

I’m not sure if this is a real update because if you get the new release of Killer Mobile’s Total Recall, it won’t change the version number on your handset. The updated release of this popular Symbian S60 sound/call recorder offers the following feature, according to the developer.

“In a MAJOR breakthrough for Nokia E50, E51, 6120, 6110, N81 and N82 user’s, Total Recall has now been updated to use our BEST sound quality setting while removing the pesky beep at the same time! Yes it’s true - you get extremely high quality sound quality AND no beep. As always, updates are free of charge to existing registered users, so update now!

NOTE: To achieve the beep free recording in “Best” sound quality setting you will need to set your Warning Tones to “OFF” in your active profile, otherwise the beep will still be present.”

Just to provide a short explanation, here I use ALON MP3 Dictaphone to record beepless telephonic conversations without disabling my warning tones. That, however, might explain the difference between a $14-or-so app and a $30-or-so app.