GLOBAL – This morning’s breaking announcement of free global sat-nav for Nokia smartphones has been bolstered by news that premium guides, and extra location-savvy services, will also be available through the new version of Ovi Maps.
Lonely Planet and Michelin guides are among the first of a raft of free services to be fully integrated with today’s update of Ovi Maps. You’ll be able to get complete access to a valuable vault of hyper-local information on over 1,000 destinations, with the added bonus that it’s all location-aware, so you’ll be able to quickly and easily tap into the most relevant information to where you are at all times. Meaning no manual pokes required.
Sitting alongside the Lonely Planet city guides and Michelin restaurant guides, the new version of Ovi Maps also plays host to a stack of smart extra services – over the coming weeks we’ll be taking a closer look at each of them here on Conversations, so stay tuned. They include a great weather service that gives you forecasts that can be as accurate as predicting the elements within a particular area of a city. Likewise, there’s a compelling events guide that pinpoints events happening within a 3km radius of where you are and provides you with details on each one. So, for example, if you fancy finding out which concerts or movies are showing nearby, you can get swift access to all the relevant info along with quick links to telephone numbers and website addresses, enabling you to easily book tickets and plan your day within moments.
The combination of these additional services means that Ovi Maps has now become an info-laden location-aware pocket guidebook, that will also speak to you to explain how to get there turn-by-turn. For free.
Find out more about free voice-guided navigation on Nokia smartphones here, and let us know what you reckon in the comments section due south.