Nokia teams up with Amazon to bring Maps to Kindle, snubs google maps?
Reuters is reporting that Amazon and Nokia have got together and Nokia is providing Maps for Amazon’s forked-Android powered Kindle tablets!
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/08/30/us-amazon-fire-maps-idUKBRE87T1ML20120830
This is not yet official news, just ‘trusted sources’. I’m glad Nokia is slowly getting noticed for its great maps and location solutions. Hopefully, slowly but surely it can break through into culture whereby people don’t automatically say ‘google maps it’. Perhaps Nokia’s onto something with regards to being the ‘Where’ company.
Cheers crisscross for the tip
Category: Nokia
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Sites That Link to this Post
- The Where company snags Amazon’s Kindle as mapping customer | WMPoweruser | August 31, 2012
- Confirmed: Amazon is using Nokia’s Location Platform, shuns the Google. : My Nokia Blog | September 17, 2012
Good news and i am wondering how can they snub google maps as they are available on app store or as default in the android OS.
Jay your must be late sleeper..
or is this prelisted write up to go live at this time.
Hes a student.
Nuff said..
The kindle does not use play store and maps in the OS.. It just uses android and has taken out its access as far as my knowledge goes..
Amazon’s new Fire is going to be a big seller and they decide what’s pre installed, as they are breaking from any google control.
Hilarious
NAVTEQ never respond to my error reports…
Nokia’s mapping tech has been the best I ever used. But back during the Ovi times it was only available on Nokia handsets. Now with WP8 integration and Kindle tablets, location is looking good. Nokia is indeed on to something here.
and adding facebook that uses bing maps ( that will be transformed in nokia maps), we will get places from many companies that have their own pages on facebook..
so it will be easy to find places
this is looking good for nokia maps…
definately good – nokia maps!!
Pardon my French but: F***ING-A!!! This is more like it!!
Excellent, excellent news, hopefully the trusted sources are right.
Agreed. They’re finally making use of the Navteq purchase. I do hope they are getting significant licence fees from Amazon, Microsoft, Rim and whoever else is now using Navteq/Nokia technology. Navteq may now stop being such a black hole financially, and become the powerful asset Nokia must’ve envisioned it would be at the time of the purchase.
Oh my god that is AWESOME! WOW that is just unbelievable, that is a HUGE middle finger to Google from Nokia and Amazon if true! So Google will be getting a taste of their own medicine now. Not only has Amazon made a customized version of Android which Google doesn’t get revenue from and doesn’t even access the regular Google Play Store, but if this is true then Google will lose maps revenue here as well. This would be huge as the Kindle is the 2nd most popular tablet after the iPad. It would be big for Nokia and for Amazon.
All the Android/Google fans keep yelling about how awesome Android is, and that it’s open and flexible and you can do all this stuff on it. Well it looks like Amazon and Nokia are proving just how flexible it is, by locking out a ton of revenue from Google, and making Android on Kindle provide revenue for them, and not Google.
Nokia must improve the laggiess when panning around
Google maps is much smoother and with street views
But I thought the main condition to use android on your device is that you must use google maps? Which is I of the reasons Nokia didn’t go android? Unlessmamazonnis going wp?
ONE (not the only) reason was that Nokia could not have gotten Google to agree to replace Google Maps with Nokias platform for EVERYBODY using Android. With MS they were able to do that.
and if they changed the os too much like amazon did, put their maps on it and so on, then nokia phones wouldn’t have had access to the android updates and apps. bassically it wouldn’t have been android anymore. i don’t think that is what people who want android on nokia phones would want.
and with ms it seems they actually worked to build wp8. we’ll see in the next months how it will work out with wp8 and so on
i think it’s because Money and Elop
Android is open source so anyone can use it and then fork it as they please, as Amazon has done with the Fire and presumably the Fire 2/whateveritscalled. I think there may be some charge on top if they want to integrate Google services though.
Aliqudsi:
That’s just, to get the Google ecosystem, you must play by Google’s rules. Amazon forked Android into a completely own direction and does not use Google’s ecosystem, but their own. Nokia getting the location slice of that pie is potentially pretty huge and a massive snub at Google – also a way for Amazon to be more independent from Google.
This is certainly promising news. And with indoor mapping on the way it can only get better! Nokia has certainly been moreimpressive with mapping and imaging as of late. Heres hoping they grow mapping to encompass all other devices so the world can experience what we Nokia users have proudly known and used for the last several years.
+1!
I have no idea how Amazon’s app store works, but does it use .apks? If so it surely won’t be long before the app is ripped and is available all over Android as a whole, which can’t be good… Piracy is just far too easy on Android.
Hopefully this isn’t actually possible.
So Elop is becoming a bit less evil now?
Yup! We’re starting to see him in a good light. He’s a jolly good fellow afterall.
I’d say we are just seeing the strategy fully unfold, it is easier to understand many things as it does. So it is understandable I guess for people to “get it” better now.
Anyway, pretty good news. Also, puts into new light why Amazon’s Kindle announcements and Nokia World overlap…
Nokia is damn serious with their maps cuz they know location business have a bright future.
so what is benefit will Nokia get if they share their mapping tech with amazon ?
Money. Also one more piece in the puzzle of getting to be the unquestionable number one location player in the world. But ultimately money from Kindles sold…
>But ultimately money from Kindles sold…
I doubt that. Why should amazon pay a dime?
Nokia has to and will make money on (location based) advertising and the like.
Also depends on how much Amazon wants to build on location based things. Also, the compensation structure may evolve over time in the contract.
Location, location, location…
The funny thing is Nokia will get far bigger installed base in US from Kindle than from their WP sales.
Again, why Elop signed the exclusivity, no-plan-Bl deal with MS? Yeah, because MS allowed them to have maps in WP…
Jeesh, dude.
Always a rusty lining on every cloud for you eh?
Where’s Janne with his good ol’ fashion “I told you so?”
He was absolutely right. And this is awesome.
Hopefully I wasn’t the only way who saw Nokia’s location play as what it was, instead of some gift to Microsoft?
Indeed, it is an important element for them. I expect to see more of this.
Anyway, I’m happy about the progress here after a few days of pessimism on whether or not WP8 is coming later than we hoped. (That still remains to be seen of course.)
@JGrove303
I don’t see what the big deal is. Navteq was already huge in the map data arena. For those who don’t know : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navteq#Overview
So they took one client that Tele Atlas (the other big map data provider) won’t have. It’s good news, but in no way vindicates You-Know-Who or Janne.
Elop is looking attractive as the day goes by.
I think a lot can be said of Elop, good and bad. Yeah, he messed up the transition away from Symbian pretty bad, but numerous sources say he does “get” Nokia’s services side a lot better than his predecessors. I think he understands the importance of location and is putting into play and into the forefront of their thinking. We will see more of this “services” thinking as things unfold.
The Windows Phone move is of course somewhat related to the location strategy, although mostly because it is going in the same direction as their location strategy – the two are parallel, but separate. Meaning, no matter what happens with Windows Phone, they want to succeed in location.
They want to succeed with Windows Phone too, and that supports the location strategy as well (better than Android, unless they would have forked like Amazon), but the location strategy is no way exclusive to Windows Phone. It is now in the core of Nokia and it is very much Nokia’s own.
Sorry, but big LOL.
Now locations and WP are separate and one can live without the other. If this is so, can you please explain why Elop signed up exclusivity with the most irrelevant OS and get nothing in return? And I mean nothing, because now you are acknowledging they actually don’t need MS even for the maps and can live on their own.
You do read me like a devil reads the bible.
What do you mean “now”? They always have been separate paths, but supporting each other. That’s what I’ve been saying with my comments and writings on automotive and the importance of location-based services in the future. Those were never *just* about the Windows Phone, but Windows Phone choice did support them.
No, I don’t think Nokia would do well just on being a location company – at least not now (nor do I think it would be interesting for the fanbase who likes them for their phones). But I do want to underline that the location strategy is not the same as the Windows Phone strategy, they are parallel tangents and the location strategy has never been just about Windows Phone.
As for why did Nokia go “exclusively” with Windows Phone (funny word since at no point have they actually been exclusively Windows Phone, nor look like they will be)? Many reasons, many unrelated to this topic, but one is that it supports the location strategy, because Microsoft was willing to license Nokia’s location platform as a part of Windows Phone and Bing. Google was not.
With Android Nokia’s only hope would have been forking or trying to live alongside Google Maps. Supporting official Android would have meant giving a boost to Google Maps at the detriment of Nokia’s location strategy. Instead, now they get to be the location on Windows Phone and maybe in the future on all Windows devices… and also on as many other cars, competing handsets, thingamajics as possible.
So, going with Windows Phone meant gaining new ground for Nokia’s Location Platform. But that is not the only reason they did it, nor is it the only ground for Nokia’s Location Platform to gain.
>They always have been separate paths, but supporting each other.
No, without Nokia Maps (with navigation) the Symbian devices could not have sold that good (before 11211). It was an differentiation feature.
Now Nokia could simply split into 3 different companies: Nokia (hardware), Navteq (all of Nokia L&C) and NSN. Because now Maps/Drive is provided through WP8 for Nokia Lumia.
So basically, Nokia is becoming MS’s OEM b**** singing “location.. location..”.
What is exactly gained here by busting everything Nokia; i.e. Symbian/MeeGo, and then Qt; by your favorite Elop???
You know WP strategy is still not fruitful yet after such long time and can still fall apart, right?
Pardon me, but when were locations sold as separate thing that can work without WP? In fact the excuse was it’s now about the whole ecosystem experience and that only MS is willing to use Nokia maps as the location part, after all you just repeated the reasoning here.
If they can build the location platform and the where company without WP ecosystem, then why the deal? It would be really interesting to know the other, evidently so far unmentioned reasons. It must be definitely something big if it can make up for the loss of profits, loss of future independence in smartphones and for the risks of dragging Nokia at the brink of failure.
What new ground for location platform are you talking about? With WP they lost quarter of the market and Elop is refusing to use any other smartphone OS thus permanently depriving Nokia of any possibility of success on the most important device of any ecosystem.
Maybe you didn’t notice, but Nokia went exclusively with WP one and half year ago. Now the transition is coming to end and there is nothing on smartphones beyond WP, not even as theoretical possibility.
For f-s sake. Does the expression “supporting each other” not exist in the Czech language?
If not, this sentence might give you an idea what it means “I don’t think Nokia would do well just on being a location company”. When you read it, put emphasis on the word “just”.
You probably wont believe me, but that phrase does exists in Czech, however it seems to have totally different meaning. Saying that Nokia supports MS is understatement of the year. Elop threw Nokia’s independent future overboard and betted everything on MS. On the other hand, what MS gave to Nokia is small cut in initial license fees and access to the location business on WP, which we learned Nokia doesn’t need anyway. Elop even didn’t get the reciprocal promise of Nokia being exclusive HW maker.
So it’s one thing that the idea to replace own profitable solutions with failing OS was insane from the start. But the complete one-sidedness of the deal puts it on whole new level.
Maybe now they’ll update their maps more often?
Nokia is bringing the most popular Symbian apps to the lumia.
Microsoft has just mapped the u.s. and Europe with the Ortho project….except Area 51….Area 51 Ali!!! What lurks there?
How can we find out what’s in Area 51 or who’s and what planet are they from? A balloon and a 808.
Interesting…
Do you know that Amazon has their own Maps now.
http://gigaom.com/2012/07/02/exclusive-amazon-buys-3d-mapping-startup-upnext/
so we better wait until it’s official, so we can know what exactly is the deal about.
Because I don’t understand why amazon would buy UpNext (which apparently is already on iOS) and then license Nokia Maps.
I doubt upnext would have global map data of their own. So its quite possible that Amazon would team up with Nokia and combine that with upnext.
or just maybe get map data from Navteq to expand the reach of UpNext.
What’s wrong with you people? Google made life so much better and easier. Gmail, maps, calendar, voice, talk, chrome etc. Even if you hate all their services I’m sure you are surrounded by people who use them constantly. Amazon is taking android for free, changes it the way they want so that many consumers will think it’s theirs. Google says nothing, what a great policy. But why would you be happy that amazon cuts all the possible income from google? No google=no fire. Nokia maps are btw good but i don’t get why would someone not like gmaps.
Wrong, what Amazon are doing they’re well within their rights to do. They merely forfeit their right have access to much of google’s wider ecosystem, which is fine by them.
Your assertion that they’re somehow getting a “free ride” from “Google’s” Android is wrong.
They forked the code & now they’re giving back to the F/OSS community, that’s how Google started-off.