forgive my ignorance: but am i to understand that Ovimaps map data is streamed through your 3G connection, and not stored locally?

Does this mean that nokia makes a deal with local contract carriers to allow Ovimap data to stream to the phone for free?

Where does maemo-mapper come into this:
If Ovimap data is streamed, and the stream is considered outside usual data-plan charges, where does this leave PayG users?
Can mameo-mapper and locally cached cloud made maps replace Ovimaps for PayG customers?

Cheers

(By the way, each and every time I see a thread or sentence started with "What's the deal with...", I instantly start imagining Jerry Seinfeld saying it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZF1SJW7JFw )

Yes, AFAICT, it's downloaded (and cached) over your Internet connection. This is similar to Maemo Mapper's approach, But Ovi Maps uses vector data rather than bitmaps and can do on-device routing etc.

I'm not sure there would be a "this data is free" thing from the carrier - if you got it through them you're probably on a contract including some quantity of data per month.

@Jaffa: Is there no option to pre-download the map beforehand? This sound similar to google map app on iphone.

Not that I saw, but Peter was aware of it as a limitation and hinted it was being worked on. Whether we'll see that feature at launch or not (or not at all), I dunno.

good thing for the vector data, but a very bad thing for "downloading as you go"...I just hope that we will be able to install navicore/wayfinder on the N900, so that we can have all the maps stored locally...

or just use mameo-mapper and cloudmade downloads of OSM data.

we have all that storage space after all, and it would be handy for people like my brother who travel to the US often and find their iphone useless along with its google maps ability.

at least if you have real GPS and pre-cached maps you can navigate regardless of whether you contract works in country x.

There's an application called map loader by Nokia. If I understand this correctly, it's a windows software that allows you to download maps needed for your route on your PC and then transfer it to a device... I'd guess it's currently made for S60 handsets only, but this might change. Who knows.

Let's not bother with map loader then, if it requires us to have a Windows PC. What we need is either cross-platform support for Win, Mac and Linux, or, better still, an N900 that is self-sufficient and requires no host PC to delegate tasks to. This is supposed to be a mobile computer after all, and not a phone.

So basically you're saying that navigation for Maemo will be free, and not for Symbian, or it will be free for Symbian as well in the near future? But what about those people who already bought the navigation?