We picked up on a Tweet yesterday by @ajnewma, saying: ‘Just walked from Hyde Park to Finchley Road Tube using Nokia Ovi Maps..’

This earned our respect. Not only because he’s making the best of Nokia’s new free navigation offer, but also because Hyde Park (pictured) to Finchley Road is a fair distance - around four miles to be exact. ‘A’ for effort there.

Anyway, we Tweeted to ask what other people are getting up to with their free navigation… and it’s seems loads of you are getting involved! Here are your Ovi Maps tales…

@Sajinseethi “Once at night I fell asleep on the bus. I got off two stops later – it was fully dark @1am. No-one was around to ask and I didn’t know where I was. Used Ovi maps to walk back… it felt like heaven!’”

Fell asleep on the bus? That’s never happened to us. Honest.

@CarlSilvers “Longest journey so far with Ovi maps is 932 miles over 2 days. And I’m doing it again this weekend! Bring back traffic info!”

Mr. Silvers grabs the ‘furthest travelled with Ovi Maps’ award…

@CwMbest “From Duesseldorf to Bern. And it was faster than our TomTom Navigation System. Ovi Maps rocks.”

We don’t like to slate rival brands Otto, but we’re happy enough when you guys do!

@Mickyfin “Ovi Maps lead me & my family across country here in Finland to travel to the theme park and hotel some 600kms without problems.”

Did you go to the theme park for mainly for the kid’s benefit… or for yours? We already know the answer to that Micky - and we’ll never grow out of them either

@xMichaelsfX “Found my way with other bloggers to the big city of London. We then saw all kinds of great sights with OVI Maps!! :)”

The greatest landmark of all being WW/N Towers, right Michael?

Suju_K “After attending 2 the wife & little one from morning, I missed breakfast. Thanks 2 Ovi Maps, I found a pizza joint in a new city.“

Pizza for breakfast? You’d DEFINITELY fit in around here Suju.

the_accidental “Using the Ovi Maps webpage to save favourites then syncing to N97 for #sxsw trip right now :-)”

We’re expecting to see more genius Iain… you’ve set the bar high.

Leod_UK “Ovi Maps got me from Manchester to Penzance and then around the tourist attractions all over Cornwell :-)”

Ah, you can’t beat a good British holiday Lee… Wait, whys my nose suddenly started growing?

John_the_Monkey “Crewe to Bruges? Not all the way, but maps saved us a long hunt for the hotel in Bruges..”

We hope they gave you pri-mate’s rates?

………….

Meanwhile,@Symbiantweet and @Sirajsoft both reckon Ovi Maps were a massive help in their travels across India, while @clintonjeff wrote this piece on how much the maps helped with his recent move to Delhi… check it out!

All very Cool stuff. Seems like free navigation has really put Ovi Maps on the… erm… map.

Tomorrow, I’ll be posting on augmented reality… so let us know if you’ve seen any amazing uses of it and if you have any thoughts on how the hot new technology can change the world.

As ever, we’ll be listening @Womworldnokia.

She thinks the device is well designed, sleek and fits nicely in the pocket, while feeling ’solid in your hands’. The apps from the Ovi Store were also a bonus coming from an ‘app-less’ handset, and she used the wifi capabilities for all her browsing needs. The QWERTY keyboard didn’t suit her typing style, however, and she would have liked a stylus, but overall she was impressed. Have you had a similar N97 Mini experience? Let RenRen know how you got on.

Image courtesy of Andrew Currie (post coming later)

Ibrahim Jogee over at Symbian World has put together a useful how-to piece on finding a destination using coordinates in Ovi Maps. Although he concedes navigating using coordinates is not something most people will need to do every day it is still a useful feature and good to know how.
Head on over to find out more.

Steve Litchfield has posted a podcast over on All About Symbian in which a variety of Ovi and Symbian related topics are discussed. The new Ovi Mail 2.0 service and Ovi Maps new link up with Alpine for in-car navigation are big talking points, and there’s also chat about where Nokia, Symbian and others need to improve in order to compete with the likes of iPhone and Android.
There’s a lively discussion getting underway on the forum. You can listen to the podcast and join in the conversation here

]]> http://www.womworld.com/nokia/13930/ovi-talking-points/feed/ http://www.womworld.com/nokia/13901/ovi-music-and-dropping-the-drm/ http://www.womworld.com/nokia/13901/ovi-music-and-dropping-the-drm/#comments Mon, 08 Mar 2010 18:41:17 +0000 DomB http://www.womworld.com/nokia/?p=13901

Ricky Cadden from Symbian Guru has written a post on Nokia Music’s change to Ovi Music, and how news of a move to a DRM free platform will benefit the service. “This is definitely an exciting move” writes Ricky, “I’m hoping it affects all regions in which Nokia Music has been launched”.
Do you share Ricky’s enthusiasm for a DRM free platform and the barriers this will remove in transferring purchased tracks between devices? Head over and share your thoughts with him here

Meanwhile CJ discusses the new Ovi Maps downloader for the N900. Despite the postive new developments, he reckons that Symbian still has the edge on Maemo for maps.

Take a look at CJ’s post to find out more.

Following yesterday’s glitzy closing ceremony, we’re wrapping things up for Minimob Winter Games 2010.

A massive thanks to everyone who got involved – some of you podium dwellers might just find a little something in the post. You never know.

As promised, here’s the final table. In case you’re wondering why Team Lebanon were awarded silver ahead of India, it’s because Team Lebanon submitted more scores.

So what now? Well, you can always get back in training for Minimob Winter Games 2014. Until then - from the Minimob Winter Games committee - it’s bye for now!

	Austria	#TeamAustria	22 GOLD
	Lebanon	#TeamLebanon	20 SILVER
	India	#TeamIndia	20 BRONZE
	UK	#TeamUK	12
	Germany	#TeamGermany	5
	Canada	#TeamCanada	0

thanks to ~Darin~ for the pic

Greg at Mobile Crunch has put together a neat little summary of the recently revealed Ovi stats – and it’s sparked quite a lively debate over the respective merits of Ovi and the Apple App store.

Head over and throw in your cents worth.

It’s fair to say that it was the closest Minimob Winter Games EVER.

Now, the picky types among you will point out that it’s the first time the event has ever taken place. And yes, that may devalue our bold claim somewhat. But when you consider that the top three nations were separated by just TWO POINTS, it shows what a great spectacle the games were.

Austria beat Lebanon (silver) and India (Bronze) by the narrowest of margins. Special thanks also go to the UK, Germany and Canada teams, who finished forth, fifth and six respectively. Join the conversation around it here.

The games were rounded off with a glitzy closing ceremony, attended by an army of sporting greats and Hollywood ‘A-Listers’ (they were behind the camera).

We’ll have a full wrap up post including the final medal table tomorrow, but first here’s that aforementioned multi-million dollar awards ceremony, in full unedited glory.

Oh, and and remember everyone… ‘Always believe in your soul’.

The Minimob Winter Games are coming to a close today… and we’ll be announcing the winner LIVE on Qik at 4pm today UK time!

The tension between the competing teams is palpable, who can now only wait on tenterhooks. #TeamAustria and #TeamIndia appear to be going head to head for the gold medal, while #TeamLebanon and #TeamUk battling it out for bronze – although the latter two both still have an outside chance of nicking gold!

Meanwhile, #TeamGermany and #TeamCanada are competing to avoid being given the dreaded wooden spoon.

Well… we told you it was still all to play for! See you at 4pm on our Qik channel where Olympic-style dreams will be made and shattered!