Now available on all Windows Phone 8 devices in specific markets

Feb 25, 2013 17:31 GMT  ·  By

Today, Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia unveiled at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona two new smartphones running under Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 operating system, namely the Lumia 520 and Lumia 720, and also announced some changes to its mapping and navigation services for smartphones.

Starting today, these will be known as HERE, following the rebranding that the company first announced last year.

Through HERE, Nokia shows its commitment to delivering on maps and cartography, and is slowly moving towards renaming all the location experiences on smartphones, computers and cars to it.

“The HERE experience is built on the world’s most complete and accurate map data based on 25 years of mapping technology leadership. We offer today the only true offline maps experience, the largest indoor map inventory, and the largest public transport coverage of any location service to date,” Nokia says.

Thus, the new Lumia smartphones come to the market with HERE for Windows Phone 8, including HERE Maps, HERE Drive (with regional navigation), HERE Drive+ (with global navigation), HERE Transit and HERE City Lens.

Furthermore, the company notes that the entire HERE experience has been enhanced, and that all services and applications are now connected, being designed to work together, so that users could easily find their way around regardless of whether they’re walking or using public transportation.

“In particular, from HERE Maps you can launch HERE Drive(+) or HERE Transit if needed. In HERE Transit you now get a map overview of nearby stations and stops, and when you need walk navigation to get to the stop or to the final destination, you can start HERE Maps from there,” Nokia continues.

Nokia’s HERE City Lens, which is using the LiveSight technology, is now complemented by the Nokia Place Tag lenses app, so that users could easily have Points of Interest (POIs) that are visible in the viewfinder recorded when taking a photo.

“All your places are also saved in the HERE cloud so that you can access them from here.com, HERE Drive(+), HERE Maps, HERE Transit and HERE City Lens,” Nokia says.

The company also announced that the HERE services are now available for all owners of Windows Phone 8 devices in specific markets, including US, Canada, Mexico, UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.