The ramblings of a geek

Nokia today announced that Ovi Map 3.0 is now free of charge including full navigation, inc. turn-by-turn insturctions, voice prompts etc.

Sounds great, well yes,as long as you have invested in one of the followings phones. This is what is listed on the front page of Nokias website at http://maps.nokia.com:

Compatible devices: Nokia X6, Nokia N97 mini, E72, E55, E52, Nokia 6730 classic, Nokia 6710 Navigator, Nokia 5800 Xpressmusic, Nokia 5800 Navigation Edition, Nokia 5230. To find Ovi Maps for other mobile devices visit Maps Support

So – click on visit Maps Supports and you’ll find other clients, for instance for the Nokia N95 8GB (the phone I currently have). Great, so download and off we go. Well not quite, as what Nokia doesn’t make clear is that only the phones listed above have FREE navigation, the rest of us have to pay. A not so great reward from Nokia for investing in their products.

I think it is great of Nokia to up the ante, and offer this product “free” as it will entice certain users into purchasing, however I can’t really fathom the logic of not offering it free for other Nokia compatible headsets. Surely once they’ve made the decision of a free economic model to drive through handset sales, they may as well do it for their other handsets. I can’t see them making that much revenue of older phones.

Update

I’ve had a reply following a post I made on engadget that there is a March release scheduled for Ovi Maps 3.0.3 (the free licence version) that will run on Symbian S60 3rd Edition FP1  phones (such as my Nokia N95 8GB). If so then qudos to Nokia. However I can’t find this information anyware officially. Can anyone point me in the right direction?