Free mobe map app 'shut down by' Nokia

Popular freebie cross-platform mobe navigation app Nav4All has been "shut down by" Nokia's mapping subsidiary, according to the company. The move is bound to be seen as linked to Nokia's decision to offer free mapping to owners of its smartphones last week. "It is with the deepest regret that we hereby notify you that the …

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm....

"though the company had planned to start charging at some point." Put the competition out of business with a free offering and then, when you're the only player, start charging for it. (I know, Google would have been in on the game as well, but it doesn't bode well. Smacks of Supermarket corner-shop-killer tactics. God bless deomcratic commerce.)

[Anonymous Coward]

Nav4All would rather cease operations than change their data set

Nav4All is playing games, there is other data sets out there, even some free ones like www.OpenStreetMap.org produces, but they allegedly would rather quit the game than switch data sets.

http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk/2010-January/047721.html

They weren't the only ones to be hit by Nokia's decision, but others decided they prefered to be in business and switched:

http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk/2010-January/047727.html

[Bilgepipe]

Dear dear

And people whine about Apple having too much control.

"Nav4All would rather cease operations than change their data set"

Did you miss the part where they said they didn't have time to change data sets?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nav4All would have had time....

"Did you miss the part where they said they didn't have time to change data sets?"

What contract with this sort of ramifications ever cuts you off with 2 weeks notice?

Seriously they would have had 3-6 months notice of Nokia about not renewing their contract with Nav4All...

[Bilgepipe]

So?

"Seriously they would have had 3-6 months notice of Nokia about not renewing their contract with Nav4All..."

So? That still doesn't preclude them not having enough time to modify their app before the contract expired.

[Anonymous Coward]

Navteq

I have emailed Navteq expressing my anger and disappointment with their decision - I hope others will do the same. (Please let me know if you do!)

[Robert Carnegie]

You need to plan for being shafted by a business partner.

But maybe the plan is "give up".

[Neil 7]

@Dear dear

A bit short sighted of Nav4All in that case - their entire "business" was based on the goodwill of one data supplier. Nav4All should have hedged their bets and put in place a Plan B "just in case", if they had done so they wouldn't now find themselves up a river without a paddle. Too bad.

[petur]

@Michelle Knight

In this case, Nokia STOPPED charging for it.... get your facts right before posting

[Benanov]

Crimea River

My phone uses TangoGPS which has options on where I get my maps--and I chose OpenStreetMap.

A pity on the people who think you have to pay for good quality maps--you can contribute and download incredibly detailed ones from OSM.

[madferret]

OSM

@Benanov: I live in a fairly large city and OSM coverage round here is highly patchy. I know it relies on people providing the data, but short of walking every street myself it isn't looking good.

Don't think I'll bother now I can buy CoPilot for 25 quid.

[Anonymous Coward]

What city has lacking coverage?

@madferret What city has lacking coverage?

[Anonymous Coward]

@petur

Have you considered that perhaps Navteq charges Nokia quite a bit of money for the right to use their maps in Nokia devices? While Navteq is subsidiary of Nokia, they are independent and they do charge their clients. Now Nokia might have calculated that paying some large sum of money to Navteq doesn't matter as they get it back, after all it is just money circulating from parent to daughter and from daughter to parent.

My feeling is that Nav4All just didn't have the money to pay for the usage of mapping data, simple as that.

[Sam 5]

Last Nokia I bought

I switch my mobile every 18 months and I was considering switching back to a new Nokia next 'Upgrade' but after this poor show by their daughter company I think I will be spending my hard earned £'s with another company.... Nexus One anybody?

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Another vote for openstreetmap

If the value of your app is in the data it can access - the only way to have a business plan is to own the data or have it opensource.

Openstreetmap isn't as good - yet, but if everybody starts using it then it soon will be

If your commercial mapping can be taken away when the supplier signs an exclusive deal - then it's the only safe choice.

The same thing happened recently with Amazon, they cut off a bunch of iPhone apps from accessing their catalogue data,

[Antti Roppola]

OSM and access to data

While OSM continues to improve, state and private products with a defined update schedules are still going to be the first preference for these sorts of businesses. Due dilligence and all that. No-one's going to hurry to be the first vendor out on the OSM limb.

NavTeq are indeed over a barrel, it's quite possible that the other datasets available aren't as good (data quality or terms). I suppose the lesson is that whoever owns the foundations gets to control the market. It's not all that different to building stuff for MS Windows, if MS decide your product is a threat you will get squished. As Kenny says, "You gotta know when to walk away..."

[Anonymous Coward]

Nokia denies

Nokia has denied that they have killed the competing service:

http://www.tietokone.fi/uutiset/nokia_kiistaa_kilpailijan_navigoinnin_tappamisen

or google translated if you do not parley finnish:

http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tietokone.fi%2Fuutiset%2Fnokia_kiistaa_kilpailijan_navigoinnin_tappamisen&sl=fi&tl=en

It's a he said she said deal now.

[markp 1]

oh well

I tried that on my N79 ... it didn't work very well, when it deigned to run at all. Only left it installed because it was one of several desperation-option prongs for if Google Maps didn't work, given that the rather superior-looking, was-Nokia is-now-Ovi maps were so pricey. In fact most of the free mapping/navigation (and GPS tracking) apps I tried for this symbian phone worked pretty badly :( dunno why. Even some bigger-name ones that run acceptably, don't run "well". Perhaps deliberate, apple style crippling by Nokia such that only their own software and a few other well known brands like google and opera work properly?