Nokia is planning on renaming their Nokia Maps to HERE Maps on their Lumia line of Windows Phone. The announcement will coincide with the revealing of the Lumia 520 and Lumia 720 Windows Phone tomorrow, here in Barcelona, during their 8:30am (local time) press conference.
The HERE Maps will be an update for existing Nokia Maps users and will start at version 3.2. The exact release of the software and any enhancements to the mapping system is currently unknown, though 3D detailed mapping via earthmine (acquired by Nokia) and routing via LiveSight may be on the list.
LiveSight is Nokia’s phrase for augmented reality in their mapping apps with City Lens being an example. Nokia’s Jo Harlo revealed the news that it was coming to Nokia Maps during the Lumia 920 announcement back in September:
"Once you have set the route in Nokia Maps, pull up the phone at any time to switch into augmented reality mode and see both the direction and the route as well as the points of interest."
Seeing as it’s been nearly five months since that announcement, it seems that Nokia Maps getting renamed to HERE Maps along with a new LiveSight feature would be apropos.
Nokia rebranding from Nokia Maps to HERE Maps should not be too surprising as they have been pushing towards that direction for quite some time now, including launching on iOS recently. Since that time, Nokia Maps has had numerous updates, any of which would have been prime for renaming. But perhaps the Finnish company has something bigger to reveal with version 3.2 and were holding off for Mobile World Congress. (That's just our hunch).
Lumia 720
In addition, confirmation of the Lumia 520 and Lumia 720 Lumia phones was also found via Help pages on Nokia’s India site. Searching on Nokia.com/in-en/ will bring up two pages with the devices, both pertaining to the new HERE Maps coming at some point in the near future.
Interestingly, the page reveals just how entry level the Lumia 520 as evidently that device does not feature a magnetometer (aka ‘compass’) making Nokia’s LiveSight something that device cannot use. It also confirms that LiveSight will be added to Nokia Maps aka HERE Maps.
We’ll of course have more for you in 12 hours.
Source: Nokia 1, 2; Thanks, iamSherlocked, for the tip!
