The Nokia Drive utility will be available to all Windows Phone 8 handsets, which are set to share a common Nokia-powered location platform. The app has been tweaked considerably for melding it with the new mobile OS that was unveiled just yesterday.
Through this application, users will be provided with turn-by-turn directions for navigation while going to a particular destination. Basically, the Nokia location platform will be central to all Windows Phone 8 handsets. Developers have an opportunity to access relevant data from Nokia to build improved mapping apps.
“Today, we are making Nokia Drive available to other Windows Phone 8 partners to offer a turn-by-turn navigation experience for people in over 110 countries. Nokia Drive is one of the key experiences on Nokia Lumia smartphones, thanks to its ease of use and the experience that has gone into developing our location-based services. With Nokia Drive on Windows Phone 8, we will make drive navigation effortless,” states a post on the official Windows Phone blog.
One of the highlights of Nokia-powered location results is that they work even in the offline mode. Simply saving the maps in the offline mode will help users acquire mapping data even when there’s no network connection. Besides, there’s the client-side map attribute which proffers 50fps speeds and necessitates only 10% of the bandwidth when pitted against regular server-side map apps.
Nokia Drive covers an extensive area including more than 190 nations in over 50 languages. Navigation information is accessible for roughly 110 nations across the globe. The utility supports multi-modal routing as well, which is inclusive of paths covered by cars, footpaths, side streets and others. The Nokia location information is not just restricted to smartphones and PCs; it includes in-car navigation attributes as well.
Some leading brands like BMW, Ford, Bing and Yahoo are clients of the platform. This app provides traffic alerts to nearly 26 countries along with dynamic rerouting. Places like shopping malls, sports venues, airports and stations are mapped in approximately 35 countries.
Like we’ve already mentioned, Nokia Drive is now available for all smartphones running the Windows Phone 8 mobile OS.