Rumour: WP8 Apollo, Nokia Maps to replace Bing Maps?

Yesterday, WPCentral’s Daniel Rubino said in a post responding to the new iOS update that:

While Apple had their day, next week Microsoft will begin to unveil how they do more in one update than Apple does in three. Mark our words.

http://www.wpcentral.com/apple-strikes-out-ios-6-or-how-windows-phone-8-will-be-more-impressive

That’s quite a statement. I don’t want to have any expectations for June 20th as I feel I might set myself up for a disappointment. The reality of it all though is that Apollo HAS to be amazing. It HAS to be that good and Nokia HAS to be ready to deliver this phone ASAP.

Daniel seems to be very confident that MS will be able to deliver more in three updates of the OS. Is that three of any update, including minor updates? Either way, it’s a big claim, stressing again that this is a ‘massive overhaul’. Well it has to be.

But Daniel does give some specifics.

1) First in mapping. Nokia Maps looks to get a big boost as it will completely replace Bing. Not just in Lumia phones but in competitor phones – so the Nokia experience creeps in with them too. Good! Bing is nice and smooth and all but I never saw the point as the turn by turn directions in Bing are just stupid. Although Nokia Maps itself wasn’t that good either (Drive was the only one useful in this respect, imo).

In Windows Phone 8, Nokia Maps replaces Bing Maps all together and will feature 3D navigation and hardware acceleration across all Windows Phone devices.

http://www.wpcentral.com/apple-strikes-out-ios-6-or-how-windows-phone-8-will-be-more-impressive

Windows Phone userbase and market is still microscopic. The more places Nokia’s mapping solution gets to, the better. Especially since HTC are already trying to infiltrate this with their own offerings.

2) Integrated Skype. Integrated Facebook is no longer a unique thing with iOS 6. It’s a total shame that Nokia and MS preferred to shove it into your faces that the only thing that you could do was upload things to facebook quickly, never really showing the convenience of the facebook contact, calendar, gallery integration. Silly.

Anyway Skype will apparently behave like a regular phone call. Like on the N9 I guess. Good.

There’s other minor things, not too important right now I guess.

It’s probably best we wait until the 20th to hear any more stuff. I find that it’s already a shame that we’ll hear about things from June 20th and potentially see no devices until October :/.

Category: Nokia, Windows Phone