Google may be the new enemy at Nokia, but that doesn’t meant that it can’t also be a strong supplier, and Nokia, acknowledging that it has no answer to the generalized search engine, announced that several of its leading devices will support Google search, for that read it will have it built in.
Never were the battle lines between Nokia and Google made more clear than when Nokia spent over $8 billion buying Navteq last year, a move that was bound to take it head on up against Google Maps. Of course any Nokia handset that offers access directly to the mobile web could be used to look at the Google search page, as it could be for Google Maps.
Never were the battle lines between Nokia and Google made more clear than when Nokia spent over $8 billion buying Navteq last year, a move that was bound to take it head on up against Google Maps. Of course any Nokia handset that offers access directly to the mobile web could be used to look at the Google search page.
But the new collaboration announced at Mobile World Congress this week builds on previous cooperation over Google search, which was previously been available on Nokia Internet tablets. Also Nokia’s N95 8GB was one of the first mobile devices to fully support YouTube.
What Nokia is doing in integrating Google search with its own Nokia Search application and it will put it on the new N96, N78, and Nokia 6210 Navigator and Nokia 6220 classic devices and will go to more handsets in the future. Also Nokia pointed out that this was in ‘selected markets,’ clearly those where Google is dominant, so we wouldn’t expect to see it shipped on devices where Nokia has huge market share like India, or in very immature and large foreign language markets like China where Google has less market share. But Nokia promised to make Google search available in 100 countries around the world, in more than 40 languages.
Nokia Search is a location based search, which will get better as it is better integrated with Navteq. It takes any search and adds a location dimension to it, which it looks up in local directories which cover around 40 countries already.
Nokia Search also offers one click access to search results to phone a search result, find it on a map or get directions, so in a way Nokia is offering its customers the chance to extend the results of Google searches onto systems which Nokia controls.
Nokia also announced a Beta version of Nokia Maps version 2.0 with enhanced pedestrian navigation, adding multimedia city guides, satellite images, and a new user interface.
Nokia Maps 2.0 adds Walk, a pedestrian focused navigation component to the application, while still offering Drive, a car navigation system. The pedestrian navigation efficiently walks you from A to B with visual turn-by-turn guidance. It helps you to locate yourself by giving information about the surrounding buildings, streets and parks (including pathways through the park) and in newer handsets, like the Nokia 6210 Navigator, points the direction in which you are walking; using the handset’s built in compass for orientation.
It will also be possible for users to buy local multimedia guides to City Centers and areas of special interest. Map users get a free 3-day Navigation trial, for Walk and Drive, plus an additional free 10 minute City Guide trial.
Nokia Maps 2.0 also has, for a fee, real-time traffic feeds with dynamic re-routing in 18 European countries.
Orange and Nokia unveiled at the show a memorandum of understanding to partner on value added services such as location based services, maps, mobile advertising and gaming which the two say will lead to a strategic partnership during 2008.