Nokia's online press conference with bloggers

When Nokia announced that voice navigation for their GPS program OVI maps would be made free, we were invited to an online press conference to discuss the impact of this announcement. Here is the transcript of what went down :) (BTW - we are MyE63.blogspot.com as well)

6:43	WOM World/Nokia:  Welcome to the first Q&A session. It will be moderated by RobbieD from WOM World/Nokia, and will last 45 minutes.

6:48	[Standby]  This session will begin at 10.30am GMT with a group of invited panelists. Feel free to watch and comment, though be aware that your comments may not be put into the live stream.

9:30	WOM World/Nokia:  The session will kick off at 10.30am GMT...

10:01

FoneArena:  hello

10:03

WOM World/Nokia:  Hello indeed!

10:04

Awesome_Aleks:  Hi, The news is quite exciting tonight

10:07

WOM World/Nokia:  Hey Aleks, good to have you on. In 25 mins we'll have reps from Nokia online.

10:14

MyNokiaWorld:  Hello

10:28

WOM World/Nokia:  We'll give it another 5 minutes and then we can kick off (hopefully there are some burning questions out there!)

10:30

MyE63.blogspot.com:  hey all

10:30

MyE63.blogspot.com:  are we supposed to have a login / pass?

10:30

MyNokiaWorld:  Well you're in now!

10:31

WOM World/Nokia:  Exactly ;) You're in the mix now! We'll give it a couple more minutes then I'll do a quick intro

10:33

Nokia India Office Blog Camp:  Hi all there when do we go live

10:34

WOM World/Nokia:  Well, now's as good a time as any! I'm RobbieD from WOM World/Nokia and I'll moderate today just to make sure we have space for all questions, and run to time. The session is set to last 45 minutes and you should be able to spot the Nokia guys because they have '(Nokia)' after their name! That's the formalities out of teh way so, shall we have the first couple of questions (remember there'll be a slight delay while responses are typed up!).

10:35

MyE63.blogspot.com:  Are there any changes to the current navigation that is available?

10:36

FoneArena:  Any plans to bring maps to S40 ?

10:36

Awesome_Aleks:  Does this announcement cover the Nokia Series 40 feature phones as well?

10:36

WOM World/Nokia:  Let's hold with those three until we get some answers in

10:39

Pino Bonetti (Nokia):  Hi everyone the current Ovi Maps release contains several changes and improvements from the previous commercial release. I'm going now to mention a few:

10:39

Nokia India Office Blog Camp:  Is it going to be supported on N900?

10:40

Annika Pollari (Nokia):  At the moment it's only Symbian devices that can run new Ovi Maps. For S40 we have recently launched Nokia 2710 Navigation Edition, most affordable GPS phone with navigation.

10:40

Arshia Varlet (Nokia):  The N900 will be added to list of compatible devices soon

10:41

MyNokiaWorld:  Will it have the landmark based navigation like google maps has for india?

10:41

Pino Bonetti (Nokia):  You have now a home screen where you can access with one click to all your services Walk navigation now features voice guidance Text to speech is now available in both Drive and Walk navigation With Share location you can share now where you are and what you are up to with your Facebook friends

10:41

FoneArena:  Will we get Street View in india or other countries ?

10:43

Awesome_Aleks:  Will current phones be shipped with the new version of Ovi Maps in the future?

10:43

Pino Bonetti (Nokia):  To help users find their way more easily we provide instead 3D landmarks

10:44

FoneArena:  Hi Pino .. is Indoor positioning coming up ?

10:44

Arshia Varlet (Nokia):  The next product releases of some of our Symbian S60 phones with GPS will come with the new version of Ovi Maps

10:44

WOM World/Nokia:  Great questions guys let's just make sure everyone has time to get through them - we've got 30 mins yet - (and don't worry about bringing it up later if you slip through the net!)

10:47

Awesome_Aleks:  Is it correct to assume devices announced in the future (particularly the near-future) will come pre-installed withg the new Ovi Maps

10:47

Pino Bonetti (Nokia):  Of course we support cell-id positioning for places where you can't get any GPS fix. We are also looking into new ways to improve positioning even further by looking into new technologies

10:47

Arshia Varlet (Nokia):  yes, all new GPS enabled S60 devices will come with the new Ovi maps in the future

10:49

Alex iTWire.com:  The press release states navigation, guides etc are free. Does this mean future add-ons will also be free, will there be payable content in the future? Google Maps voice nav free of charge in the US on Droid and Nexus has changed the game - kudos for de

10:49

Nokia India Office Blog Camp:  whats the data usage if i use say an hour a day for a month?

10:49

MyNokiaWorld:  how will you be able to integrate streetview into countries like india?

10:50

Alex iTWire.com:  To continue, kudos for delivering a response that's global in nature and priced so attractively. ;-)

10:52

WOM World/Nokia:  All flowing nicely, so I won't step in... 25 minutes left

10:52

Arshia Varlet (Nokia):  Here are some real life examples to give an indication of the amount of data that could be used. These numbers naturally vary depending on the density of the road network, amount of 3D landmarks etc. • Get A-GPS fix and view your location in your home country with preloaded maps: 4 kB • Search and view Empire State Building with preloaded maps: 50 kB • Search and browse map in one city in 3D map mode: 2-6 MB • Create and show a route from Place A to Place B (56 km): 30kb • Drive through the created route: 0 kB • Drive 100 km with no preloaded maps: 5.1MB As a comparison, Ovi Maps uses 55% less data than Google Maps.

10:52

MyE63.blogspot.com:  what can we expect in the future with Nokia OVI Maps after this?

10:53

Alex iTWire.com:  Is the N900 coming to Australia? I read a report that it isn't, and haven't checked locally.

10:54

Pino Bonetti (Nokia):  Thank you Alex for your question. We would like to highlight how Ovi Maps is REALLY FREE, while Google Maps still contains hidden costs. With Ovi Maps you can download the most up to date maps for free on your mobile device. This means no data cost for navigation! And when you don't have GSM coverage you are still able to navigate.

10:54

Alex iTWire.com:  How quickly will Nokia start marketing this to consumers, will there be a global campaign to follow what will obviously be a lot of press coverage?

10:55

Arshia Varlet (Nokia):  We are constantly looking at improving our social location offering, navigation is the step up the ladder...with third party partnerships of enhanced location based apps...so stay tuned!

10:55

FoneArena:  Hello Arshia , Met you in London during the Good things ! Are you exposing this map data to developers through an API ?

10:55

Arshia Varlet (Nokia):  Absolutley! this is a game changing offer giving consumers immense value. There is a global campaign on the way

10:57

Alex iTWire.com:  Will Nokia offer users the ability to speak their desired location, like Google Maps, in a future edition, both on S60 and Maemo?

10:57

Arshia Varlet (Nokia):  Hi there! How are you? yes! for sure.developers will have access to the map data for sure

10:57

MyE63.blogspot.com:  Massive change in the game for sure!

10:57

Bilal Khaddaj (Nokia):  yes we're providing the Ovi SDK to access the map player API

10:57

Awesome_Aleks:  If anyone can emphasise on Arshia's answer. If the maps were preloaded on the Nokia device would it be correct to assume total data usage as low as a few KB for the entire trip?

11:00

Pino Bonetti (Nokia):  We tweeted earlier today a picture that shows an example:http://twitter.com/ovibynokia/status/8021732510 :-) So, even if you are going online Ovi Maps is still 10x more cost efficient than Google Maps

11:00

Annika Pollari (Nokia):  @Alex: We are currently not able to say when N900 will be available in Australia.

11:01

FoneArena:  I'm good . Looks like you guys must have had a hectic time working on this release. Kudos to the team . i could download the app to the n97 mini and get started really quick . What about support for older devices which support Nokia Maps ?

11:02

MyE63.blogspot.com:  Yeah was going to say... what can a Nokia E63 user do except upgrade to a better phone? or does this release support E63?

11:02

Alex iTWire.com:  To WOM, could you please email me a copy of the text below? I'm attending this meeting on an iPhone and not my PC, which very unusually I've not brought with me. can send email in private message but can't unless you send me a private message. Thanks

11:02

MyNokiaWorld:  Will the release support phones that can use external GPS devices?

11:03

Alex iTWire.com:  Once the q&a is over of course. Would still love to know when N900 due for Australia :-)

11:03

Annika Pollari (Nokia):  The new version of Ovi Maps is currently available for 10 smartphones and more to come, also to some older device models. All compatible devices now and in teh future can upgrade to Ovi Maps, even if thay had used older Nokia Maps versions before.

11:03

WOM World/Nokia:  Let's hang fire a moment, and get the answers to these in... (should also say, that a transcript of everything will be made available later)

11:05

Alex iTWire.com:  Oops I see your response on N900 now. Perhaps this experience would be better on it than the iPhone, if only it was locally available! ;-) :-) on a different note, is free navigation coming to the nokia booklet 3g, and also is Nokia planning a larger tabl

11:06

Alex iTWire.com:  A larger tablet /slate sized device - with free nav presumably - running Maemo 5?

11:06

Arshia Varlet (Nokia):  Smart phones with no inbuilt GPS are not compatible at this time

11:07

MyNokiaWorld:  What about in the future? Say i paired an e63 with a garmin device. would i be able to use the new ovi maps?

11:07

Annika Pollari (Nokia):  At the moment, this new offer covers only Symbian devices. We are not able state at this point anything more.

11:08

Pino Bonetti (Nokia):  Unfortunately the current Ovi Maps with free navigation doesn't support E63 yet, however, we are concentrating our efforts to support more and more devices soon. Even if you connect to an external GPS receiver :-) Ovi Maps must work on the phone first.

11:08

MyNokiaWorld:  hehe..

11:09

FoneArena:  Any ETA on this free navigation for N900 ?

11:09

WOM World/Nokia:  Has anyone got any final questions as we move towards the end of the session? (been very intriguing so far - I'm learning a lot too!)

11:10

MyE63.blogspot.com:  just gotta say.. this was what we were hoping for a long time!!! Very strategic move and it will be interesting to see how this impacts other market leaders. Is there a message you have (apart from "FREE!") that you would like to get out to the world?

11:11

Alex iTWire.com:  Any word on future voice controlled nav a la Gmaps?

11:12

Arshia Varlet (Nokia):  was waiting for that! here comes our war cry! FREE! WORLD WIDE! OUT of the BOX! and yours to keep

11:12

Arshia Varlet (Nokia):  FOREVER!

11:13

FoneArena:  And the Weather integration is cool

11:13

MyNokiaWorld:  where's mel gibson when you need him

11:13

Awesome_Aleks:  So Nokia will never charge for Navigation again? ;)

11:13

Annika Pollari (Nokia):  We are looking into including other platforms as well in this offer in addition to Symbian

11:13

Arshia Varlet (Nokia):  yup, thats the plan! ...

11:14

Alex iTWire.com:  Also - any word on more 'comes with music' offerings for a doubly whammy of music and maps? Along with adding movies, tv shows, books, mags and other content to comes with music?

11:14

Arshia Varlet (Nokia):  lets talk maps shall we :-)

11:15

FoneArena:  Ok Arshia , Street view ? ;) ?

11:15

WOM World/Nokia:  Let's just mop up the final questions and we'll have to wrap things up I'm afraid...

11:16

Alex iTWire.com:  Ah well at least we can now say Nokia 'Comes with Maps' and free at that. Comes with 'other digital media' will clearly have to wait :-) ;-)

11:16

Arshia Varlet (Nokia):  like it!

11:16

Pino Bonetti (Nokia):  Hi FoneArena, we are considering street view as well, but right now we offer alternative ways to help you find your way, for instance 3D Landmarks and Text To Speech

11:17

FoneArena:  Hi Pino , Thanks for the answer

11:17

MyE63.blogspot.com:  ok sorry I really have to go! I've just written up my blog post and I hope Nokia kills it with this new release!! Signing out from Perth, Australia

11:17

Alex iTWire.com:  There must be more surprises to come at MWC to release this now - before iPad hype hits too. Good luck with MWC and I hope you can surprise us all as much again :-)

11:18

WOM World/Nokia:  Ok, that looks like it for today - thanks to everyone for your great questions, and thanks to Nokia for taking the time to answer them!

11:18

Pino Bonetti (Nokia):  Thank you all for participating!

11:18

FoneArena:  Thanks WOM and Nokia :)

11:18

Arshia Varlet (Nokia):  thanks guys!

11:18

MyNokiaWorld:  Thanks everyone

11:19

Awesome_Aleks:  Thanks for answering our questions

11:19

FoneArena:  Take care all and download ovi maps

11:19

Alex iTWire.com:  Thanks and bye from Sydney, Australia. P.S. Release the N900 down under, or it's multitouch replacement! :-)

11:20

MyNokiaWorld:  @Fonearena, on the n900 now.. No ovi maps :(

11:21

FoneArena:  @mynokiaworld .. you bought it ?

11:22

WOM World/Nokia:  Thanks everyone, been a great session. I'll be shutting down the room in 10 mins, but the content should remain. Cheers!