360east Exclusive: First ever demo of Amman’s GPS map on a Nokia device
Yes you read it right. Amman is finally getting a navigable GPS map. And that’s thanks to Nokia, who will be providing it for free for its Nseries and Eseries devices. I got a private demonstration of the map by Nokia today (see video below). This is the first time it has ever been shown to anyone and its worth noting that the map is still in “beta” as Nokia told me, but we should expect a release by the end of this year.
I was able to check the map out for a few minutes. It certainly covers a large part of Amman. On the western end of the city, I found that it stops at the Medical City road. But that might change with the final release of the map. Proper GPS mapping for Jordan’s highways is also coming.
The really exciting thing is that the map includes loads of “points of interest”. Museums, restaurants, hotels, petrol stations, places of worship, etc are all marked down on this map. I checked the 5th circle area for example, and found the Greater Amman grill, Whispers and Fame in their right places.
The map has all the street names and district names as well.
While the map itself is free, the voice assisted navigation features on Nokia Maps is a paid service. Users get a free one or two week trial to test it. One cool thing is that the assisted voice navigation comes in multiple languages including Arabic.
Check out the video below (excuse the lousy quality)
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October 30th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
That’s awesome!!
October 30th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
Nice!
October 30th, 2008 at 9:38 pm
looks super cool to me! only to Nokia? no Sony ericsson? and i thought this is by network provider not phone vendors :S
and what bugs did you find so far? how can we try it?
Thanks for posting
October 31st, 2008 at 5:06 am
Finally! Excellent. Now we need to find ways to get the service widespread and used- cabs, services, delivery, etc – this way the app becomes of true use and benefit.
October 31st, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Finally, it’s about time we join civilization!
November 2nd, 2008 at 11:53 am
Finaly! That is very cool
November 3rd, 2008 at 3:51 pm
will it work now on my Nokia E71?
November 4th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
thankyou
we need arabic map
November 11th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
[...] Today we have lots of google maps for Amman and even now we have GPS maps.. all what we have to do is to place the current routs of public buses and service taxies on those maps. Include the stop locations of these transportations. Create a simple web application to suggest how can people go from point to point. calculate cost of the journey and maybe estimate time .. would be amazing.. [...]
December 5th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
[...] This is a brave move by the two companies. To my knowledge, Nokia has enough mobile market share in Jordan to have recently debuted Amman maps as part of its Nokia Maps service. The maps are free to ESeries and NSeries Nokia phone owners, and can also pair with turn-by-turn voice navigation–though that requires payment. I find it unlikely that a single PND would be able to beat out the world’s leading cellphone provider. [...]
December 12th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
WWHHAATT
!!
TAHEYATI EVERYBODY FOR THIS PIECE OF NEWS…....
December 15th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
i have an HTC PDA it has GPS and i need to know where i can get the gps map of amman for free online…i travel to amman a lot and i need such a service
December 16th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
I’ve downloaded the Nokia Maps 3.0 BETA from http://www.nokia.com/betalabs/maps
I couldn’t install it on my n95 8GB… when I checked out I found the “Compatibility and system requirements” section states:
“Maps 3.0Beta works with all Nokia devices based on S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 (see devices) except N96, where we have still known compatibility issues. S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 1 support coming soon. ”
how did u solved this problem, since you are using the program on n95 phone?
January 8th, 2009 at 10:52 am
Has Nokia released the updated version of the Jordan maps? Also will it work on the 6210 Navigtor?
February 4th, 2009 at 4:39 am
Thank you for the info.
Is this available yet?
April 7th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
thank you
May 21st, 2009 at 6:01 pm
Is there a version available for PocketPC ?
June 8th, 2009 at 11:36 am
How can I download it??????????????
July 24th, 2009 at 11:45 am
thats great. at last we are doing something good,,, but i hope its working
November 13th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
how can i buy it for 5800
December 30th, 2009 at 2:19 am
If you want the map for PocketPC, drop me an email : ezz_kht@hotmail.com
April 10th, 2010 at 1:18 pm
hi,my friend bought an htc phone online but the people at the airport refused to hand it to him due to gps system contained in it. they told him it is still illegal in jordan.he was told have to sign an agreement for some kind of approval? can someone really explain but this?
April 17th, 2010 at 6:10 pm
I had my Garmin GPS withheld at the airport this month as well in Amman and was told that GPS wasn’t legal. This was being said while a nearby guard was talking on a GPS enabled phone. Fortunately the iphone in my pocket didn’t come up. I wasn’t going to question it then, but when I pick it up when I leave in a week and a half, I’ll ask some more detailed questions.