Define routing and navigation... In my book routing is when it just draws a line from A to B without having the app to track you where you are right now.. Navigation is when it does what routing does _plus_ the sat locks on to you and follows you around while driving and shows you display what to do next (go left, right... etc)... Just because it doesn't tell you where to go via voice doesn't mean it's not a navigation software... And last time I've checked Ovi Maps does navigate you through the streets, it just doesn't do it via voice... Annoying yes, false advertisement.. no...

Good Grief. A year after release and we are STILL on this.

By that standard, my car can be marketed with "free driving, forever! At only 75% cost!". The fact that those b*tards at the gas station charge for gas isn't my problem. And the fact that all sales are subject to tax also isn't my problem.

It's not that it doesn't have navigation, or that it is or not charged. The point was that mandatory parts of what is considered navigation, like maps and searching are all subject to data transfers, a fact that was conveniently left out.

No matter what you consider routing, navigation, whatnot, the device:

* lacks the ability to natively preload an area for later routing
* lacks searching capability
* because of the above, any unplanned, free routes are not realizable.

As a result, the device is not independent, not free and does not route unless under specific circumstances which can safely be considered outside normal operation.

When I need my navigation is when I'm lost. When I don't know where I am and where I should go. At that exact point, I need to shell out if I want any help at all.

Without the link, I get nothing out of the damn Maps app, not even coordinates. I can thank third party apps and Camera for those.

Let's assume you hired a guide to get you through the mountains, and, half way through you get lost and ask the guide for help. The guide replies "I have no idea where I am, where to go and what's around. I cant find anything". Would you consider that a guide service? Would you pay?

If Nokia would have allowed me to preload the maps for an arbitrary area, say, Bucharest, I'd be half-happy. And if it would allow me to search, OFFLINE, that map area, it would qualify as navigation. Forget voice. I wouldn't be happy, because I consider saved bookmarks a basic feature, but what the heck, it would drive me back home.

But it has no such features. I'm lost, I pop out the navigation, and it puts a red blot in the center of a gray area and says "you are here" which is the kind of help I'd expect from a crayon.

If it can't even provide an arrow towards where I want to be or where I was without payment, it's not free. And if I don't pay, it's not navigation. The package never said "Navigation only works if you are online". If it did, we'd all be golden.

Also, it seems the phone does calculate a route if offline. I noticed it transferred data when calculating, so I assumed it did it with online help. So at least there's that. If you have the map of where you are, where you want to be and the area in between, and you have a good enough memory to pinpoint start and destination, you have navigation.

With no preload, that's actually less useful than it seems.

If you have a long-range car that "was designed to always be on the road", does it seem OK to you for the car to explode if ever pulled over?

Designed to be online 24/7 means it CAN maintain a link 24/7, not that it has to. And you know that full well.

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Frankly, this is becoming tiresome. Just because a few of you don't route with the phone doesn't mean that people who do can be pointed at.

I'd like to see how this thread would look if N900 required confirmation from Nokia.com to allow you to read your contacts, or accept an incoming call. Hey, it's free, right?

Before calling people crybabies, think it through. If a feature you need at a moment's notice required Nokia.com to work at random times, would you still be here, venting (against)?

An advertised function is missing a good chunk of its features. These functions have been offloaded online, at a substantial cost to the user, especially when roaming, for bad data plans, and emergencies. This limitation was never advertised.

I'm not even going to open the point of Nokia servers being offline or the service being discontinued.

The courts found a long, long time ago that it is known that advertisers use a certain amount of exaggeration, and consumers understand that. I think that courts would find that this is a reasonable construction of the term "navigation" and would not find Nokia liable for misleading advertising.

Do iOS and Android support offline navigation out of the box?

My N900 does everything you say it can't, with no data/wifi connection. I did preload maps from nokia and can map out routes without issue. You do need a connection to text search, but I simply point on the map where I want to go and then it will calculate the route according to my filtering selection.

It works fine for me.........

Good News!! You can do that!!!

I remember a time before google maps and map quest and the only way to connect to the internet was to clog up a phone line. Could get around just fine without some computerized voice telling me where to go. Now, it seems, thats what the wife is for!

errr.... what?

nope, designed to be online 24/7 means the way everything should work: by requiring a connection 24/7. there was some criticism in the first place about it but it has been a known fact for 1.5 years or something....

Yes, but I will never buy another phone from THAT horse.

And don't get everyone started on the whole "UNLIMITED" internet business.

Sit back, relax and watch the comments flow.....