Earlier this year, Nokia announced that they have made their Ovi Maps satellite navigation feature a free service. The announcement applied to all Symbian Series 60 handsets (and above) that had access to Nokia’s Ovi store and of course, Ovi maps. This meant that many Nokia handsets just increased their value with the addition of free sat-nav services.
The Nokia 6700 Classic however, was not part of that deal. The device did not use the Symbian S60. But now, it appears that that is an issue no longer. Nokia has confirmed that they are going to be giving the 6700 Classic free voice navigated services. The phone packs support for both 2G and 3G networks, making it one of the few candy bar handsets that would be able to make use of the A-GPS feature. The device also packs a 5 mega pixel camera and a decent 970 mAh battery.
GPS technology has been a very influential force in the mobile phone industry. Thanks to GPS, many small businesses and out of the way stores and shops have found themselves visited and seen by more people. The surge of new location based apps and services also affected the way people choose stores to visit. And most importantly, GPS gives people the freedom to explore because they know that as long as they have their phones, they will be able to find their way back.
Nokia’s decision to make the Ovi maps voice guided navigation into a free service was the first announcement of its kind and has spun the GPS industry around. Even Google decided to follow Nokia’s example by announcing several months ago that they too would be adding voice guided sat nav services to Google Maps and Street View –and that the service will be offered for free.
Tags: Google-Maps, Google-Street-View, GPS, Nokia, Nokia-6700-Classic, Ovi-Maps, Ovi-Store, Symbian