I wrote a piece giving my first impressions of Nokia Maps 3.0 a few days ago. I found the app quite good, but it didn’t come with a free licence for visual and voice directions.
Drive navigation, the term that Nokia uses for this, is a premium service requiring a subscription. I decided that in order to give the application a fair review I needed to try Drive Navigation out.
Fortunately, Nokia Maps has a menu embedded that lets users subscribe right on the handset you are using. Well, I dived in there, and was presented with the various subscription plans and fees, as well as a form to enter my credit card details.
In a few moments, I had purchased a 30-day licence. I recieved an SMS receipt:
I had also opted for an email version of the recipt (which contained more details).
The whole order process was smooth and easy. Impressive. Mobile commerce, if done right as in this case, will encourage more mobile users to make purchases right on their devices.
The 30-day subscription costs just N999.00, which is significantly less than most people spend on airtime monthly (Okay, okay; I’m speaking for myself), and it was completed under 5 minutes.
The payment services was handled by Tanla Oy, a company with indian origins that offers end-to-end mobile commerce, mobile entertainment, mobile internet and mobile advertising solutions.
After I entered my licence code in the appropriate menu on the phone, I was ready to go:
I’ll be putting Nokia Maps through its paces over the next few weeks. In addition, I’ll be doing same with Garmap for Mobile, which I also wrote about just yesterday.
Looks like I’ll be having fun for some time. Hopefully, I won’t get myself lost following either application 
Which is very, very unlikely, judging by what I have seen so far.
In the meantime, kudos to Nokia for making it easy to get a subscription to the Nokia Maps Drive navigation service.
This post was written by
Mister Mobility – who has written 922 posts on Mobility blog.
Founder, Mobility blog, serial lifestyle entrepreneur, speaker, & writer. Charming, passionate, tenacious & non-conformist. Will dance! Follow him on Twitter @Mister_Mobility.
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July 10th, 2009 at 9:03 pm Browsing with
I dont quite understand what d term, Navigation means coz my friend’s N73 has Nokia Maps pre-installed when he bought it. If I set it(Nokia Maps) to take me from one place to another, it does so with turn by turn voice simulation. So why do we need to purchase another Navigation licence or am I getting something something wrong here.
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July 10th, 2009 at 9:31 pm Browsing with
Azeez, from what I know of the N73, Nokia Maps 3.0 should not be working on it. The N73 is s60 v3.0, and the old Nokia Maps 2.0 didn’t work on it because 2.0 is compatible with newer s60 v3.x devices.
The N73 also does not have GPS built-in, and the earliest versions of Nokia Maps (v1.x) that it ran used Bluetooth GPS units or the phone’s internet connection to run.
Lastly, the N73 is now discontinued. Are you sure what your friend has is an N73? Perhaps you mean E71?
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July 11th, 2009 at 7:06 am Browsing with
U were right. I did a check on d version . It is v1.2. My question is: with d voice guidance that is already on it, does my friend need to purchase another licence?
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July 11th, 2009 at 8:10 am Browsing with
Yomi,what kind of pay card did u use? Was it a credit card or debit? Mastercard or Visa?
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July 11th, 2009 at 8:37 am Browsing with
Azeez, on version 3.0, voice guidance is an extra (premium) feature requiring paid subscription. If the version on your friend’s phone has voice guidance pre-activated, its either its running a trial licence or that version bundles voice as a free service.
There should be a menu item that lets you check the licence the application is running.
Bayuze, I used a Mastercard, and both credit and debit work well. You shouldn’t have any problems with Visa either.
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July 30th, 2009 at 4:07 am Browsing with
Can someone navigate nigeria with nokia map?I read somewhere that nokia phones have no gps map of nigeria,how come your phone in nigeria,Can you please clarify that?
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July 30th, 2009 at 6:48 am Browsing with
Avuru,
Nokia Maps v3.0 now has maps for Nigeria. See the following:
1. A Look at Nokia Maps 3.0
2. Taunting Garmap for Mobile and Nokia Maps
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