I was on my way home after office hours two days ago when I ran into a billboard advertising Nokia’s mobile maps for Nigeria.
This is long overdue, in my opinion, given the fact that Nokia has a huge market here in Nigeria. I have always felt that Nokia downplayed the significance of the Nigerian market with their lack of support for the country in Nokia Maps.
However, the billboard claimed that Nokia Maps is “The First Mobile Navigation in Nigeria”. This is certainly untrue. I can rattle off my head at least two mobile navigation applications that made it to Nigeria before Noki Maps: Garmap for Mobile (which was launched a few weeks back), and Ceaser MobyMap.
This reminds me of Zain’s outrageous claim that with the launch of 3.5G on Zain Ghana, they “inaugurated the first 3.5G network on the continent outside South Africa“. Come on, guys!
The people at Nokia should have done a little research before making such a bold claim as this. Or are they just attempting to bully their way through with it?
Fact: Nokia Maps is NOT the first mobile navigaation in Nigeria. It is NOT even the second.
That false claim aside, we will be looking forward to trying out Nokia Maps in real life usage to see how it performs. Until then, if you have more information about Nokia Maps, you are welcome to share in the comments segment.
This post was written by
Dayo Olutunfese – who has written 56 posts on Mobility blog.
Dayo Olutunfese is a mobility consultant and seminar facilitator. He is on the staff of Mobility.
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June 11th, 2009 at 11:55 am Browsing with
Just left the Nokia maps updater. Nigeria is still not listed despite the fanfare.
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June 13th, 2009 at 7:09 pm Browsing with
Enjoymentman, Nokia are catching on to how things work in Nigeria: make a lot of noise about your product even when you know its nowhere near ready or available.
Kudos!
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June 15th, 2009 at 8:49 am Browsing with
I’m not suprised, Technically all Nokia does in Nigeria is sales and marketing;in contrast to what they do overseas. Research, even in collaboration with Nigerian University ,is more of fairy tales.
While the whole Earth gets the N97, we have to wait until further notice to try it out ?! Thats rubbish. Nokia services under the ovi umbrella don’t exist, stuff like Nokia pilot which has been lying in the grass for ages isn’t even functional.
In fact, i think i prefer the E72, to this N97.
I’m curious to know what else they really do here in Nigeria besides *business*.
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June 18th, 2009 at 6:44 am Browsing with
Nokia under estimated Nigeria by thinking they are the first to introduce maps in nigeria. I happen to be a heavy Nokia fan but am sad about this incidence.
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July 2nd, 2009 at 2:10 pm Browsing with
Hi guy,i incidentally run into this site some few days ago and i felt very happy to hav somebody lik u doin dis great job in this part of d world.pls keep it up.i came across one article in site,one guy said he is using nokia map in his nokia e71 perfectly wel.pls i want u to write on how to activate d nokia map in phones.i’m using nokia e66
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July 3rd, 2009 at 11:50 pm Browsing with
I stumbled on a Nokia marketer in Abuja, some days ago, with a nokia phone connected to a wide screen, i could see the map of our exact location (Ceddi Plaza, Abuja)….
on getting to Nokia Care, they said its only available in very few nokia phones, and my E90 was not included, the await updates, so the said…
i just got off Nokia’s website where i tried updating the maps on my phone using the “Map Loader”, Nigeria is not available in the “Africa” section.
so i ask, why havnt they updated their online bouquet? ‘cuz its available physically in their Nokia Care Centre.
@Dayo:.. nice work here, more people should know about this “forum”……
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July 4th, 2009 at 3:30 am Browsing with
Orji, Jimohesq,
Thanks for the compliments guys.
Nokia maps for Nigeria is available on only two phones at the moment – Nokia E71 and the 6210 Navigator. On any other Nokia phone, what you get is a bare-bones map application.
I’m not sure why they chose to go that route though. Really baffling. But until they make the Nigerian maps available on other devices, all non-E71 and non-6210 navigator owners need to look elsewhere for their mobile-based navigation maps.
Cheers.
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July 4th, 2009 at 12:43 pm Browsing with
Yomi, maybe you guys could actually make the site abit more public.. so there’d be like an AAS, SF , SG ,etc for Nigeria. Even on google, search for keywords like ‘Symbian’ , ‘S60′ , ‘Nokia’ , and ‘Nigeria’ seem to have only your site popping up, .. well besides newspaper sites and blogspots.
Was actually thinking of doing mine too – put together an S60 blogger team,etc. But i think i’ll wait till i get a qwerty device.. maybe 5730xm.
Quite impressive site. Though i think there will be a work-around to getting nokia maps on other excluded devices – just to manipulate some code and firmware entries abit
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July 5th, 2009 at 5:13 am Browsing with
Soul, I don’t quite grasp your suggestion, especially this part:
Care to throw more light on this? Cheers.
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July 5th, 2009 at 10:13 am Browsing with
“” maybe you guys could actually make the site abit more public.. so there’d be like an AAS, SF , SG ,etc for Nigeria.
Care to throw more light on this? Cheers.”"
AAS – AllAboutSymbian.com
SF – Symbian-Freak.com / Symbian Foundation (symbian.org)
SG – Symbian-Guru.com
etc – Other mobile (or symbian) related websites (not necessarily symbian associated)
What i meant was that it would be more beneficial to most Nigerian (mobile users) online if knowledge of MN was made abit more public/open. Since you guys are technically doing ( to an extent) what the above sites do (coverage of stuff relating to mobility,mobile devices, symbian, etc) , but from a nigerian prespective.
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July 5th, 2009 at 5:31 pm Browsing with
Soul. Thanks for the clarification. We have some serious publicity for MobilityNigeria.com in the works.
We want to make sure first that the server resources to handle such a heavy spike in traffic are in place before we give the site that kind of exposure though.
Thanks for the suggestion. Appreciated.
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July 5th, 2009 at 6:04 pm Browsing with
Worse case scenario:if the spikes get too high, you could always use your mobile devices to shoulder the load; via Nokia’s MWS. Add WRT widgets and what not.
Though, you might need a programmer to rewrite their code to suite your purpose.
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July 6th, 2009 at 9:24 pm Browsing with
Mafiana,
You do not need to go to a Nokia Centre if you have an internet-connected PC. In your4 PC browser, go to http://europe.nokia.com/explore-services/maps/download to download the Nokia maps Updater.
Next: Install the Updater, connect your phone to your PC and launch the updater. Follow the prompts to complete the process.
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July 7th, 2009 at 6:52 am Browsing with
Hi Yomi
I use Nokia E61i, so i know i cant get the Nokia Nigeria maps for now.
But I seem to have a problem reading / finding the maps for other countries which i downloaded into my phone using using Nokia maps updater.
Pls assist.
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July 7th, 2009 at 1:27 pm Browsing with
Bosun99uk,
I’m not sure how to locate those maps. I was under the impression that once you have downloaded any map, it is simply integrated into the application and works “out of the box”. At least, that’s the way it worked for me.
By the way, folks, here’s my Look at Nokia Maps 3.0 on the Nokia E75.
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