Notices

I think mapping software really has two major components.

1) Updated POI - People just use their mapping software because it puts things into a location aware content.
2) Turn-by-turn or good navigation interface - people wanting to know how to get from point A to point B.

Currently Google Maps is the leader for updated POI (at least for US). There is no current application (that I am aware of) that can provide the second piece of functionality.

I'm perfectly fine with having two different apps for those different pieces of functionality.

Google has just announced its own "maemo mapper", with turn-by-turn 'n all... only it's "android mapper" :-)

Google Maps is getting turn-by-turn directions for android 2.0.. I wonder how easy it would be to port it to Maemo

http://lifehacker.com/5391781/google...gps-to-android

Very considering a good chuck of it will be written in Java

Aha here's how it goes:

1) See a great open source project, Maemo Mapper
2) Hire the Maemo Mapper guy
3) ????
4) Release a product called "Android Mapper"
5) Profit!

Can i get the ovi maps europe maps to my pc.
And later on install it on my n900 .
Wich one/maps do i need.
Where can i download them for free.
Please help me

Well I would have thought that the basic logic shouldn't have been too hard to sort, Java is a C style language so other than having to sort out memory managment it should be straight forward, though labourious, to port it to C++ and make it work faster too.

I concur and hope somebody from maemo developer community pick it up for porting sooner than later.

not to destroy anybody's hopes, but i doubt that we'll see a port of the google turn by turn navigation.
first, you need the source code. android is partly open source, yes, but i'm sure google keeps this one closed to have a competitive advantage. i searched a bit but couldn't find any licensing info on this. maybe someone has better information?
second, porting from java to c/c++ is a bit more involved than just having to sort out memory management. this application might depend on many dalvik-specific classes, which would have to be ported as well. you'd be opening a pandora's box of additional dependencies which would have to be sorted out...
it's probably easier to write a front-end application to maps.google.com which implements turn by turn navigation and relies on the google maps API.

I agree. The current version of maeMaps took only around 20-30 hours to develop, and already features Directions and GPS integration, with LocalSearch coming up soon.
One could probably parse the directions list and compare it to the GPS every 5 seconds to determine current route progress, then auto-pop the map detail and a large banner for the next turn.