Nokia Ovi Maps Launch

Being picked up from the airport in a chauffeur driven limo is something I was not expecting. But it was definitely something that I had always wanted to experience. So as I was whisked away to the 15 on Orange Hotel with my newspaper and spring water bottle in hand, I thought of what I could expect on the Nokia Ovi Maps launch in Cape Town.

I was greeted personally by the doorman and ushered in to the venue. After some breakfast and general chinwagging with the Nokia people, it was off to the Ovi Maps presentation. The small hall was decked out with LCD screens and fantastic finger food.

The Ovi Maps presentation was very interesting and we even got to meet the GM of Nokia SA, Mathia Nalappan. Very down to earth guy, and what an intelligent one at that.

We were then split into teams of four and sent on an “Amazing Race” sort of adventure. We were given a nice BMW rental car to drive around in, the first clue and a Nokia N97 Mini to navigate with.

It took the four of us some time to find the first clue, and I have to admit that we battled with the search facility on the N97 Mini. It simply just couldn’t find anything within our vicinity, instead returning results from as far away as the Gold Coast in Australia. I also found that the N97 touch screen was quite inaccurate and found myself navigating to menu items I never intended clicking.

We eventually finished the race, stone last. But I don’t think it was a very good way to truly experience the Nokia Ovi Maps and the N97 Mini. We were under too much pressure and one definitely needs some sort of initial instruction on how to operate the ovi maps software.

The ovi maps now include directions with a voice, and something that really got me excited about this product, developed by NavTeq, is that the voice actually mentions road names when giving directions. That is a first for any navigation system.

The boring NavTeq presenation did shed some interesting stats which I wrote down somewhere and now cannot remember where I wrote them down. But if you do a search on Twitter for #NokiaCTIA I am sure you will find a heap of stats.

We were given a tour of how Navteq go about mapping out roads and places. We piled into a Navteq van, fitted with a GPS and a big screen TV so we could see exactly what they do and how they do it. Amazingly, it’s pretty darn simple. The very basic software shows the van moving and the user simply draws, with a light pen, what he says, the name, type of place and the contact details. Once they are complete at the end of their day, they capture the information into their database. Very, very simple, but it works, somehow.

Overall, I think that Nokia are going to do well with their latest interation of Ovi Maps and with some further refinement in the future will more than likely top the charts as the navigation system to behold.

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2 Responses to “Nokia Ovi Maps Launch”

1. Michael says:

   April 9, 2010 at 11:58 am

   “…actually mentions road names when giving directions. That is a first for any navigation system.”

   This is not new and not a first (well maybe a first for a phone). The upper range of the Garmin series (1300, 1310, and 1410) all include street names in voice directions – for a couple of years already at that.

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2. JuicyJustin says:

   April 9, 2010 at 12:05 pm

   Ah, thanks for clearing that up Michael

   Reply