Nokia Maps puts free, downloadable maps and routing in your hands, in an earth browsing experience that allows you to zoom in from the globe to the destinations of your choice. With free maps for more than 150 countries, and with 15 million points of interest (POI) pre-loaded, Nokia smartpohone users (select devices) can plan your route street by street, city to city.

There are also optional extra features available such as a fully-fledged navigation system. If your Nokia device doesn’t have built-in GPS, you can also use an external GPS module. Another attractive option, users can buy information-rich city guides from Berlitz, Insight Guides and many more, with expert advice on where to go and what to do that becomes an integrated part of your browsing experience with Nokia Maps.

Using "Maps" is a breeze, particularly if you have integrated GPS... for the purpose of this spotlight I'll focus on users of the way cool N95 (which is romored to be officially rolling out in the US very soon - my guess is mid-Spetember 2007... stay tuned on that one! Simply click the Maps application icon to load, the application fires up and brings up a map, then zooms-in near your locale in "Google-Earthish" fashion! Activate and wait for GPS positioning to kick in, the application then functions based on your current position. Search results, navigation, mapping and routing are all then available to you.

Save POIs
Nokia Maps helps you remember where you’ve been, and let your friends know where you’re going. Tagging lets you save the spot on your map as a landmark and then send it to your friends. You can swap hotspots with your favorite contacts, and get the inside track on your city. You can also take a screenshot of the map – Save location > As image. The image is saved in your device’s default gallery folder.

Share
Once you’ve found and tagged your favorite places you can share them with your favorite people. Whether you are meeting up or recommending a restaurant, when you’ve found the desired place on the map you can send it quickly and easily, via MMS, SMS, email, Bluetooth or infrared. The information about the location is sent as a geocode and text (except in SMS, where it is sent as text only).

Routing - Finding a route from A to B has never been easier. With Nokia Maps you can easily plan a route to your destination. Simply indicate your starting point, and your destination, and Nokia Maps will plot your course with easy-to-read directional arrows.

Guides ($): Did you know that there are more than 3000 city guides available for Nokia Maps? You no longer need to carry heavy, outdated guides and large maps with you, its all in your mobile device – when you want them, and where you need them. The branded city guides in Nokia Maps from Berlitz, Insight Guides and many more, include useful and interesting detail on tourist sights, business essentials, restaurants and hotels. Note - Guides are for purchase via Nokia

Search: Nokia Maps helps you discover the most interesting sights, restaurants, shopping and accommodation in cities all across the globe. Whether you’re looking for a taxi rank, railway station, or the airport, Nokia Maps can locate it for you. With 15 million places pre-loaded, you just need to choose the best way to find what you want.  Not sure where to go? Search for all the restaurants near where you are

Navigation ($) The powerful navigation capabilities of Nokia Maps guide you along the shortest or quickest route from A to B, with voice guidance and 3D map views. Navigation is an extra service which needs to be purchased prior to use and is valid for selected regions and periods of time.

Get Started

Nokia Maps needs either a built-in or external GPS receiver for real-time navigation or finding your location. Even without GPS you can use Nokia Maps to browse maps, locations, points of interest and to plan a route. If your mobile device has a built-in GPS receiver (such as the Nokia N95), you are good to go as it is with Nokia Maps. For a good GPS experience, make sure that you have the latest firmware for your mobile device with A-GPS (assisted GPS). Whenever you browse to a part of the world which you haven’t visited with the application before, Nokia Maps will download the map data on demand and save them to your phone or memory card if you have one inserted - Note: an unlimited data plan from your carrier is suggested!

Of note: I've been using Nokia N95 and Nokia maps for about 2 months now. The coolest things I find about the device and this application to date is:
- maps available and automatically updated on my device as I move around - eg. I can follow my position in real-time on a map when I'm in a new city.
- POI search - automatically generated based on my location, if I search for pizza the hits are returned in order of proximaty to my location. Address and contact info is provided.
- storing my own POIs. Whenever I'm at a location that I frequent (the ballpark, gym, office, mall, CSU, etc... I store a point)
- never lost... I can always easily locate a place when I'm driving around town in search of an address
- it's free!
- a wish... since I grab a ton of photos and geoclocate them all using either tagzone (yahoo! labs) or locr, I'd like to be able to quickly view MY photos on my device on the maps using the Nokia maps application... that would be cool! Sahring them with other N95 users would be icing on the cake!

Supported Devices: 90, 61 61i 65
N Series: N95, 73, 76, 93i, 80, 72
E series: 61, 61i, 90 "communicator"
Also: 6110 Navigator and 6120 'classic"

No GPS? No Worries, the application is compatible with users of the Nokia Wireless GPS Module LD-4W and Nokia Wireless GPS Module LD-3W.
 

To get started I suggest you grab this tutorial document [PDF]

To download Nokia maps and the Nokia Map downloaded jump HERE. This application works with most Nokia N series and E series devices - GPS is suggested!

See also Nokia Mobile Search - http://mobilesearch.nokia.com/index.html and the Nokia Maps Home

http://maps.nokia.com

Those interested in the future of Nokia Mpas should check out http://ovi.nokia.com/ovi/app/ovi/flash/