TomTom Executives are in for a shock. Nokia has today announced it will hand over free turn by turn navigation to its users essentially worldwide.
The move comes after its acquisition of Navteq and will see anyone with a GPS Nokia phone and access to Ovi Maps, be able use the service – presuming of course you are in one of the 74 countries Nokia has made the service available. It also works in 46 languages and includes detailed maps for 180 countries – all for free.
Currently, Nokia Ovi Maps navigation is supported on the Nokia X6, N97 Mini, E72, E55, E52, 6730 Classic, 6710 Navigator, 5800 XpressMusic and 5320.
It’s no question that the move by the Finnish cellphone manufacturer will see other key players in the global navigation market reaction ferociously. You can almost hear TomTom and Garmin executives scramble into emergency meetings as we speak.
Question is …. is it usable? I really find hard to use Nokia options menus. UI and navigation is usually so hard. Yes, am a smartphone user.
TomTom shares down by 10% already….
Great but Google has already came up with Turn by Turn navigation some time ago. Course only usable in the US so its not bad
The question is could it be used OFFLINE or I have to rely on weak 2G operator coverage while traveling.