My relevant background - I live in Los Angeles, owned an HTC HD7S for more than a year and just recently got a Lumia 920. I like everything about my new 920 except vibration noise, and this horrid Nokia Maps app which is forced on us...
Problems with Nokia Maps:
Lack of integration with the rest of the operating system.
Nokia maps is an island to itself. I click an address from a people hub contact, it opens Windows Phone Maps, not Nokia Maps. I click an address from a Bing search which has a dedicated hardware button, and it opens Windows Phone Maps, not Nokia Maps. I click an address in an email, you guessed it, it opens Windows Phone maps.
Searching in Nokia Maps has terrible results
I tried 3 searches today during the course of my day using Nokia Maps. Si Laa is a Thai restaurant I wanted to try a few miles from my house with an obviously unique name. The results I get are for Joyce Cafe, something in Germany and Slovenia. Next I try UPS in hopes it will find the company owned UPS Customer Center a quarter mile from my house. It doesn't find it at all, but does find alot of ups stores that are further away. Nokia Maps choked on another restaurant in Beverly Hills I tried to find. My wife's iPhone 4s had no problems with any of these.
Local surface street traffic info is missing
On the Lumia 920, I don't get any surface street traffic info. I do see traffic info for highways and freeways. I used to get local surface street traffic on my old HD7S Windows Map. Windows Phone Maps shows some sporadic street traffic data but is not quite right either. I called Nokia about it, the level 1 techie tells me I'm supposed to have local street traffic but has no further explanation and has escalated to level 2...
Slow Performance
Nokia maps loads much slower and is much choppier when panning the map than Windows Phone Maps. Nokia maps takes 4 seconds to load vs pretty much instant for Windows Phone maps.
Nokia removed the Windows Phone Maps.
As shown in the first point above, Windows maps is still clearly on the phone, but Nokia removed the tile for it from the app list. There doesn't seem to be a way to directly open Windows maps. This would be fine except that Nokia maps, which is supposed to be the replacement, is worse than Windows Phone maps in so many ways.
There isn't a single reason to use Nokia Maps over Windows Phone Maps.
The only reason I use it is because Nokia has seen fit to make Windows Phone Maps hard to start by removing it from the apps list.
Nokia should leave both map apps available and in the apps list. If Nokia Maps is the superior product, people will use it. Right now I'd say Windows Phone maps is superior in every way and that's a shame for Nokia who is supposed to be a mapping leader...
Problems with Nokia Maps:
Lack of integration with the rest of the operating system.
Nokia maps is an island to itself. I click an address from a people hub contact, it opens Windows Phone Maps, not Nokia Maps. I click an address from a Bing search which has a dedicated hardware button, and it opens Windows Phone Maps, not Nokia Maps. I click an address in an email, you guessed it, it opens Windows Phone maps.
Searching in Nokia Maps has terrible results
I tried 3 searches today during the course of my day using Nokia Maps. Si Laa is a Thai restaurant I wanted to try a few miles from my house with an obviously unique name. The results I get are for Joyce Cafe, something in Germany and Slovenia. Next I try UPS in hopes it will find the company owned UPS Customer Center a quarter mile from my house. It doesn't find it at all, but does find alot of ups stores that are further away. Nokia Maps choked on another restaurant in Beverly Hills I tried to find. My wife's iPhone 4s had no problems with any of these.
Local surface street traffic info is missing
On the Lumia 920, I don't get any surface street traffic info. I do see traffic info for highways and freeways. I used to get local surface street traffic on my old HD7S Windows Map. Windows Phone Maps shows some sporadic street traffic data but is not quite right either. I called Nokia about it, the level 1 techie tells me I'm supposed to have local street traffic but has no further explanation and has escalated to level 2...
Slow Performance
Nokia maps loads much slower and is much choppier when panning the map than Windows Phone Maps. Nokia maps takes 4 seconds to load vs pretty much instant for Windows Phone maps.
Nokia removed the Windows Phone Maps.
As shown in the first point above, Windows maps is still clearly on the phone, but Nokia removed the tile for it from the app list. There doesn't seem to be a way to directly open Windows maps. This would be fine except that Nokia maps, which is supposed to be the replacement, is worse than Windows Phone maps in so many ways.
There isn't a single reason to use Nokia Maps over Windows Phone Maps.
The only reason I use it is because Nokia has seen fit to make Windows Phone Maps hard to start by removing it from the apps list.
Nokia should leave both map apps available and in the apps list. If Nokia Maps is the superior product, people will use it. Right now I'd say Windows Phone maps is superior in every way and that's a shame for Nokia who is supposed to be a mapping leader...
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