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mistermix	2009-10-28 , 10:38
Posts: 35 \| Thanked: 20 times \| Joined on Sep 2009	#1

A Maemo developer got lost and posted his negative experience with the N900's Ovi Maps on his blog It isn't pretty:

The maps UI sucks. It is unusable to a novice. The GPS seems to update randomly every 10 mins or so. It blocks the screen with messages. It tries to connect to GPRS when there's no signal (and clearly no need). Mostly it just completely fails to meet its purpose.

As we hit a road we recognised I realised that I was so pissed off with this experience that if I were a consumer who'd paid retail for this device I would want my money back - and as someone who has breathed Maemo for almost a year now, that makes me very, very sad.

Mapping is a critical app - I hope this is fixed soon.

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	edgedemon	2009-10-28 , 10:55
	Posts: 383 \| Thanked: 209 times \| Joined on Oct 2009 @ London UK	#2

There is a forum thread over at google asking them to port google maps to Maemo, so hopefully something will come of that...

http://www.google.com/support/forum/...5398e001&hl=en

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	GeneralAntilles	2009-10-28 , 15:36
	Posts: 5,478 \| Thanked: 5,222 times \| Joined on Jan 2006 @ St. Petersburg, FL	#3

Originally Posted by edgedemon

There is a forum thread over at google asking them to port google maps to Maemo, so hopefully something will come of that...

i.e., Maemo Mapper. . . .

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Last edited by GeneralAntilles; 2009-10-28 at 15:36. Reason: Whitespace

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	Fargus	2009-10-28 , 15:54
	Posts: 1,217 \| Thanked: 446 times \| Joined on Oct 2009 @ Bedfordshire, UK	#4

Originally Posted by edgedemon

There is a forum thread over at google asking them to port google maps to Maemo, so hopefully something will come of that...

http://www.google.com/support/forum/...5398e001&hl=en

Lets see, Google have Android to play with so what are they going to think about helping the competition product? Whilst I would LOVE to see Google Maps (and Latitude) on Maemo I will be very surprised if it happens through a supported channel at Google. Would be nice if they would open up the Latitude API though so we could use that from within Maemo Mapper etceteras!

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mistermix	2009-10-28 , 16:32
Posts: 35 \| Thanked: 20 times \| Joined on Sep 2009	#5

Originally Posted by Fargus

Lets see, Google have Android to play with so what are they going to think about helping the competition product? Whilst I would LOVE to see Google Maps (and Latitude) on Maemo I will be very surprised if it happens through a supported channel at Google. Would be nice if they would open up the Latitude API though so we could use that from within Maemo Mapper etceteras!

Google has released and continues to update Maps for BlackBerry, Symbian, WM and iPhone. Google's business model is advertising, not selling software or hardware, so if there are enough eyeballs on the Maemo platform, they'll build software for it.

Google just announced turn-by-turn nav for free for Android 2.0, and they plan to release it for iPhone, too. So the whole "pay for navigation" model that Ovi uses looks like it's out the window.

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	zerojay	2009-10-28 , 16:52
	Posts: 2,669 \| Thanked: 2,555 times \| Joined on Apr 2007 @ Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada	#6

I don't understand what the issue is with Maps.

I used it for three days straight in a city I've never been in before and never had problems with finding my way anywhere I wanted to go. The UI, granted, is not very good at all and VERY confusing, but the actual functions all worked perfectly fine to me.

Replace and fix the UI and get rid of the Javascript crap and it would be fine.

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TA-t3	2009-10-28 , 16:53
Posts: 3,841 \| Thanked: 1,079 times \| Joined on Nov 2006	#7

As for Europe, you certainly don't want to download maps through the cellphone connection, unless you're driving in your own country - the roaming data prices are still insane.

/me thinks my good old TomTom navigator will do the job better

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jsbigs	2009-10-28 , 16:58
Posts: 172 \| Thanked: 27 times \| Joined on Oct 2009 @ San Francisco, CA	#8

Originally Posted by olighak

Not necessarily. Google Maps still relies on you having a cell signal to download the maps. If you´ve ever driven outside of US cities you´d know how many times one looses a signal. For those travels Google Maps is not the answer, Ovi Maps is.

I have to admit though, that through my 2.5 years of using Nokia maps I always preferred Maps 1.0 for symbian to 2.0 and 3.0. It seemed like the later versions always wanted to call home to mommy to calculate directions, while 1.0 was happy to do it by itself without having a signal. That calling home to calculate a route bugged the hell out of me and made it tricky to use in the boons of Maine, New Brunswick or West Virginia.

Agreed. The TomTom Navigator 6 I've been using on my Palm Treo 750 leaves the maps on your device (or an SD card in the 750's case), with absolutely NO need to have a GPRS signal to navigate, unless you're using the traffic application (invaluable, imo). To require the app to connect to calculate turn-by-turn is a BIG step backwards. My suggestion: the maps should be free for the region in which you bought your phone, i.e. North America. I'll pay a fee to download the maps for another region I'm traveling to, i.e. Europe, but to require a connection when I'm outside of my home country will cost me WAY too much money in data roaming charges.

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mistermix	2009-10-28 , 17:02
Posts: 35 \| Thanked: 20 times \| Joined on Sep 2009	#9

Originally Posted by olighak

Not necessarily. Google Maps still relies on you having a cell signal to download the maps. If you´ve ever driven outside of US cities you´d know how many times one looses a signal. For those travels Google Maps is not the answer, Ovi Maps is.

The latest version announcement said that Google Maps has the ability to cache some panels, but I grant you that it's not the equivalent of having the maps stored on the device.

And, since the US version has to use T-Mobile, you make an important point.

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mistermix	2009-10-28 , 17:44
Posts: 35 \| Thanked: 20 times \| Joined on Sep 2009	#10

Originally Posted by olighak

Which provider, T-mobile / AT&T, doesn´t make a difference once you go drive around Maine/New Hampshire/Canada/Texas/West Virginia/North Carolina/Georgia/Alabama/Missouri/Louisiana/New Mexico/Virginia/Pennsylvania/New Jersey/New York/Vermont/Tennessee/Illinois/South Carolina/Maryland.

T-mobile users can roam onto other providers, if there is no t-mobile tower but another provider with one has a roaming contract with T-mobile.

I´ve been using AT&T up until now, and hate their guts if I may add, so loosing the signal in all the above places while using my N95 and Nokia maps has been with AT&T. And by the way, I´ve got 0-1 bars with AT&T at home, 2-3 with T-mobile. At work 1-2 bars with AT&T (3 miles out of downtown Raleigh) and 3-4 with T-mobile.

Since Verizon is launching Android 2.0 on the Droid, this is less of an issue. I'm constantly amazed when I travel in the boonies and still have Verizon signal.

What would be ideal is the ability to have a nationwide set of maps on my device that would automatically be refreshed as I travel to new areas. If I had signal, the latest map pages would be downloaded to my device. If not, the local files would be used.