Nokia location apps rebranded to HERE

At the MWC 2013 keynote, Nokia announced that its location services on the current WP8 Lumia (and non-Nokia WP8) devices will be rebranded to HERE. In new Nokia fashion, the update is already rolling out! As you can see in the screenshot above, Nokia Maps is now HERE Maps, Nokia Drive+ is now HERE Drive+, Nokia Transit to HERE Transit.

Nokia Conversations also adds the following info:

But there is more than meets the eye. The new HERE experiences are connected and work seamlessly together, making it easy to transition from walking to driving to public transport as you move along your day. In particular, from HERE Maps you can launch HERE Drive(+) or HERE Transit if needed. In HERE Transit you now get a map overview of nearby stations and stops, and when you need walk navigation to get to the stop or to the final destination, you can start HERE Maps from there.

We have also recently introduced LiveSight, a technology that integrates sight recognition with live map information. LiveSight is a UI revolution that uses sight (instead of keyboard, touch screen or voice) to interact with your smartphone. HERE City Lens already uses this technology, and soon we will introduce it also in HERE Maps and in our newest camera lens, Nokia Place Tag. When you are taking photos with the Place Tag lens, your Lumia will capture the image and also record the Points of Interest (POIs) that are visible in the viewfinder and the name and address.

On top of the new features outlined above, we have also added some new features. In the next days we will take a closer look at each of them to see what’s new. All your places are also saved in the HERE cloud so that you can access them from here.com, HERE Drive(+), HERE Maps, HERE Transit and HERE City Lens.

On the newly introduced Nokia Lumia 520 and Nokia Lumia 720, HERE Maps, HERE Drive and HERE Transit are preinstalled, so that you can experience HERE out of the box.

HERE works best with Nokia Lumia, but in a joint effort to further strengthen the Windows Phone ecosystem, Microsoft and Nokia are making HERE Maps, HERE Drive and HERE Transit available to people with any Windows Phone 8 smartphone. This exclusive offer is available in US, Canada, Mexico, UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

‘These announcements firmly establishes HERE as a horizontal brand and thoughtfully-tiered service offering. It should benefit broad developer communities, generate significant new value for Nokia, and let Nokia retain the ability to differentiate its Lumia products with unique experiences’ said John Jackson, Research VP, Mobile & Connected Platforms, IDC.

Category: Applications, Lumia, update, Windows Phone