Bing Maps vs. HERE maps post-acquisition

[dawindbag]

So I was pondering what the state of maps on Windows platforms will be following the acquisition of Nokia. This is a topic that I haven't see discussed much in the media.

Couple of questions:

1) What is the current relationship between HERE and Bing maps? What does HERE provide and what does Bing provide? I gather that the both sides have benefited from the partnership, but it's unclear to me why they both still exist as different brands and how they distinguish themselves.

2) Do we think that Bing maps on WP8 and Win8 devices will be further de-emphasized and HERE more tightly integrated into search and other 1st party apps? Or will it go the other way, will HERE grow to become more of a complete 3rd party app with Bing maps gaining prominence with MS re-investing in development to make it more usable on mobile devices?

Ultimately, I view WP8 having 2 disparate mapping applications as a significant issue. While I like HERE maps UX some of the data is lacking for my region compared to Bing (and definitely Google), I also get frustrated when location links in 1st party apps take me to Bing and prevent me from using Nokia Drive w/out lots of cutting and pasting. I worry that the Nokia acquisition could lead to a much less collaborative relationship between HERE and WP8/Win8.

So what do we know, and what do we think we can expect from MS/Nokia/HERE going forward? (Similar questions could probably be raised about the Nokia camera technologies which are amazing but need deeper integration as well.)

 

[Sean Miller4]

Yeah i dunno what phone you use or you didnt set it up right or you dont update your apps, but find here maps has better information than bing and google both, its usually the most up to date, 2nd i dont do anythin special to get my here maps its the default mapping not bing i dont even know how to get to bing in my phone anymore anytime i request an address here maps comes up automatically, i dont really know what will happen, but since msft has rights to the maps i would say it probably going to shift to all bing but underlying info would be from both, and then you most likely will be able to download here maps and nokia will continue to offer this stuff, but the intregrated maps will most likely have the same info so should be the same maps but i think the features will probably be better on HERE cause nokia has tons of experience and back when they ran symbian they had the best mapping apps out of everybody. And right now they are still a the top, google maps rarely has better info i use google on my computer for work anytime it doesnt have an address here has it, so its neck and neck.

 

[dawindbag]

Go to Bing (search button on device)
Search for McDonalds.
Click on a location.
Click on the address.

Now you're in Bing maps.

You can click the "Drive" button in the results list and get to Nokia Drive but often I want the maps app so I can search for stuff nearby.

As for what's better, the Traffic data on Bing in my city is much better than HERE. So are the search results e.g. Local pivot in Bing compared to HERE maps search. These are really important for me.

That's not really the point though. The relationship between MS and HERE is about to get more complicated. There's redundant effort being exerted on both mapping solutions and I hope that doesn't continue, WP needs to catch up to Google from a integration standpoint and having 2 options seems to be getting in the way of what could be a huge differentiator.

 

[Armin Mhd]

The 1st party apps such as local scout and other apps give u the option to get navigations with any navigation app on your phone so that shouldnt be a problem but i think here isnt going to be the 1st party one cuz it still has many flaws and u cant pin a location coz when u zoom out the pin moves too! If they fix these stuff maybe but i havent seen any improvements yet

 

[Sean Miller4]

Yeah I don't use bing maps for stuff like that I just click on the map from start into here, as far as traffic or anything like I said here is leaps and bounds better, I do use the search button for local option to find stuff but then I use drive after that, because here search does lack in that area but that's not actually the maps, when you hit search your using the bing search engine not bing maps these are 2 different things and your getting confused, bing maps doesn't even have an option to search, HERE maps is not a search engine and will never have the search like bing does, google maps search is also like bing it has the #1 search engine backing it, but when I use google maps on a DAILY basis it gets out done by here every single day as far as map accuracy roads are missing or in the wrong spot constantly on google and I have to pull out my phone to get the correct map. And traffic data is also perfect on here for my city and didn't even know bing had traffic data, I'm pretty sure Nokia has a better reach in this depth. And bing licenses do not go belong to Nokia so they are not allowed to put this into their maps. But MSFT could put here maps into bing as HERE maps are infinitely better maps than almost every other supplier except maybe google. bing isn't even on the same level. But if they used here maps combined with bing in one platform made by MSFT which I think they will probably next year, you will have the #1 mapping on a phone. But I dunno why you say traffic data isn't good as HERE is one of the top players in that field they have tons of traffic data from all over, maybe you live in a city that isn't well supported by HERE so you don't get the full experience. Like I said coming from Nokia maps when they use to run Symbian yes HERE has a long of bugs but all the data is still there, and they were #1 on phones before they came to windows. People that live in an city that isn't well supported get irritated but google and bing and everybody have cities they don't well support some are better than others, but if you live in a major city HERE is top of the line.

 

[Sean Miller4]

P.S if you want to know how good traffic data HERE maps has, go to Traffic Reports | Traffic Alerts | Road Conditions | Traffic News & Delays | here.com, yeah that is a traffic site owned by Nokia, just because one area in the world doesn't have great traffic data doesn't mean Nokia isn't a top or #1 player in that field. You can't judge their data by using it in one area of the world. So saying they need to fix stuff is probably not correct as they are already ahead of almost everybody just not in your area. Sooner or later your area would probably be fixed I don't know. But I'm almost positive bing gets their traffic data from HERE or Nokia, you probably just don't know how to use traffic on HERE. I would have to research it but MSFT has never been a big player in traffic or maps and anything they have now is coming from Nokia aside from the search engine aspects.

 

[monkeyvn87]

Frankly speaking I cannot read what Sean Miller 4 say................................. It's not legible .........