Nokia maps ... getting version 2 to do anything.

I've foolishly agreed to go with my (far) better half and son for a period of time where no work takes place (I believe this is called a hol-eee-day).

Since it will be in Devon this year (I'm thinking of you lot out there who would doubtless have a better time without my three year old in an aircraft cabin, call me Mr Caring) I'll be driving.

Now, my wife has an unairing sense of direction. She can memorise a map at a glance and find her way to a place she has never been in the dark and whilst it's hailing (whilst driving too) but my good self, well, I can get lost going to the post office.

So, since I have a Nokia N95, I decided to unlock its mapping navigation functions and see what it will do for me. Since my handset had been updated to the version 2 map application and had the latest UK map on it I duely paid Nokia the princely sum of £6 (via premium rate text message) and presto! I had the navigation by car and foot functions available for the next 30 days.

So then I gave it a go. And it was worse than me.

Well, that's unfair, I don't know if its worse than me since it said "Calculating route" and that was it. Sure, the little arrow shows where I am (and locks to the GPS signal quite well) but it did that without paying.

So I took a look on the forums and found that this issue has been ongoing in version 2 of the maps application since 2007 with no obvious sign of being fixed.

After briefly considering giving up before coming to my senses and thinking of my lost £6 I finally decided to update my phones firmware again to ensure this wasn't a compatibility issue. It doesn't seem to have been since nothing seemed to change (apart from the phone loosing all the text messages I had) and the "Calculating route" message stubbornly remained.

Next I downloaded the Nokia Maploader application and removed all map data from the phone and re-installed the uk maps. And, at last, it planned a route. I can now plan routes and the phone seems to be ready to lead me on my merry way. I'm not sure what the issue is but the new(er) map data seems to have been the clincher. Try it if you get the same issue!

Here's the problem. Whilst tecchies will labour the point and keep bashing away at problems like this (if for no other reason than £6 is still two pints) no one else is going to bother. Sure a TomTom is going to be around £100 and a phone is always with you but your average phone user is just not going to dedicate 3 hours to resolving this kind of issue even assuming they have a PC (none of the Nokia software used here runs on the Mac or on Linux) with internet access nearby.

I also recently saw someone running TomTom on their N95 8GB and it was wonderfully easy to use and fast. The problem? They had to have a bluetooth GPS receiver too since the software couldnt use the N95s' internal GPS unit. I believe this is under development - it may even be part of the work that's supposed to bring TomTom to the 3G iphone.

I have to say I love the concept of Nokia Maps, it just seems to need more work to fully integrate it into the phone and I'm still not sure of the pay as you need it navigation model. But, for now, it seems to be working so I'll see if it gets us from Poole to Devon and back before I make up my mind fully.