Google Maps now native on more phones: Do UIQ? We do.
Thursday, March 20, 2008 | 11:10 AM
As a mobile user, you choose a carrier, subscription plan, platform and handset model (think of it as a flavour) that suits your fancy. And with mobile applications becoming more and more important in your everyday wireless experience, you want to be sure that the apps you know and love will run beautifully on the phone you finally decide to call your own.
That's why we've just released a "native" UIQ version of our Google Maps for mobile client application. Native applications are optimized for the platform on which they're built, meaning they run fast and feel right. UIQ is an open mobile software platform that supports rich user interfaces like touch- and full-screen. Now that Google Maps for mobile runs natively on UIQ for Symbian OS, you can get the full benefit of handy features like My Location on a wider range of phones.
You can already get Google Maps for mobile clients custom-built for Palm, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, iPhone, and Symbian S60, in addition to the widely-used Java version of the application. Now, this list includes the following UIQ handsets (version 3.0 and up): new Sony Ericsson phones with touch screens -- P1, W960i, W950, M600 or P990 -- and the Motorola Z8. And new UIQ phones are coming out all the time; look for the soon-to-be-released Sony Ericsson G700 and G900, as well as the Motorola Z10.
Supporting so many platforms means only one thing: whatever gold-plated, diamond-encrusted or mint-scented handset you choose, a zippy mobile mapping experience is never more than a download away. Just visit google.com/gmm from your phone's web browser, and we'll get you sorted.
Labels: BlackBerry, google maps for mobile, iphone, Mobile Blog, motorola, palm, sony ericsson, symbian, uiq, windows mobile
14 comments:
Anonymous said...
I noticed the other day that an address for a contact could not be found on my iPhone but could be found on maps.google.com. Is there a technical reason for this? Does the iPhone, and all mobile map products for that matter, use an older set of data for some reason?
March 20, 2008 at 12:24 PM
MC said...
Hi Lawrence. I wanted to say that with respect to Gmaps, Google is really over-promising and under-delivering. It's great that you say you are supporting more platforms, but I want to report that not only does My Location not work on the two recent, 3G phones that I have, but I have never seen described what the requirements are for My Location. I have posted to the GMM discussion forum and various cellular forums, but have not received an answer.
I thought that My Location was a sort of least-common-denominator solution to location that basically relies on data communication with a database at Google someplace. Why wouldn't this work on any phone with a data connection?
Can you state the requirements for full use of GMM, including location?
Thanks!
March 20, 2008 at 5:39 PM
JonM said...
The post is tagged with iPhone. I have an official (still locked, 1.1.4) iPhone. On google.com/gmm I get a link for a download but then a "Safari can't download this file" error.
Is a new version of the iPhone maps app? If so, will it be included in the next Apple update. Or is this supposed to be separate from that & how should we install it?
Finally, will GMM synch with the saved locations in regular Google Maps at some point? It is silly to have a Google-supported iPhone maps app that has a completely independent set of saved locations, as now.
March 21, 2008 at 7:51 AM
Josh Marshall said...
WONDERFUL. This works perfectly on my M600i -- I was really bummed without My Location and having to bounce between scroll wheel and "Alt" keying. Thanks a bunch -- from many a UIQ user, no doubt.
BTW -- I understand why My Location is limited in its accuracy, but is there any sort of reporting by users that would be helpful to make it more accurate? For example, coordinate reporting using Google Maps if we're near a PC, etc.?
Thanks again for a great release.
March 23, 2008 at 12:09 AM
Rahul Chand said...
Any chance we can get Bluetooth support so we can feed a GPS signal into GMM for UIQ3
March 23, 2008 at 1:40 AM
Eurydice said...
I just downloaded Gmaps 2.0 and was shocked to find how different the UI is from my previous version (1.4.4).
Gone is the navigation keys zooming, breaking up navigation between the joystick of my N73 and the keypad.
Gone are also the Favourites!!! Now those I will be needing back guys. They are the most useful feature of Google maps! (ok, after the actual finding an address...) It's nice to have them as fixed points on your Gmaps landscape. Will we get them back?
(happily, i did not uninstall 1.4.4 or i would have been very very annoyed with Google)
Eurydice13.
March 28, 2008 at 10:23 AM
Wilson said...
Mmmm. Is it me, or GMM doesn't enable us to bookmark locations in our mobile?
April 1, 2008 at 11:11 AM
Unknown said...
Although this blog is great for keeping track of what google mobile is up to, it would be really useful to have a page for each google mobile product that told us what the latest version of the software is available and what changes were made since the last version.
Google maps works great on my N95.
John
April 3, 2008 at 12:46 AM
Anonymous said...
i love google mapas on my palm 755 but i really cant wait for the app to be compatible.
April 16, 2008 at 8:11 PM
Charles said...
Hi,
When GMM on Windows Mobile will be able to select the data connection to use?
GMM on my mobile phone Samsung SHG i600 try to get data by my MMS connection!!!
Thanks to take account this suggestion.
-selection of the data connection
-proxy configuration
May 14, 2008 at 8:18 AM
BurritO said...
Hi,
i totally love this product of yours. well anyway is there anyway that i can embed gmaps onto a mobile site?. a smaller version maybe?
like this one?. http://google.com/m/search?q=6067+MORNINGSIDE CT+GURNEE+60031&site=maps
a quick reply from you is really appreciated. jito14@gmail.com
June 8, 2008 at 4:37 AM
Olivier P. said...
It's great to see that you support more and more platforms but I am wondering why you also remove support for platforms on which GMM and MyLocation were working just fine.
I had a version of GMM on my RAZR V3xx which was working perfectly fine and on which I had successfully used MyLocation. I removed it after having some issues with my phone and now when I try to download it again I get a message stating that GMM is not supported on this phone. What happened? Did you loose the source code?
By the way, it's the same for GMail mobile but fortunately I still have this running on my phone even though your server pretends it is not supported.
Regards,
July 9, 2008 at 2:42 PM
MC said...
Any guesses on when/whether someone from Google will weigh in here? On this question or any of the other questions raised here?
July 9, 2008 at 3:27 PM
Olivier P. said...
Maps and GMail are now available again on the RAZR. Thanks!
But Maps does not support My Location anymore on this device. My Location was working just fine on the exact same phone last time I installed the application (about a month ago).
Maybe the source code you found was not the last version...
Olivier
July 10, 2008 at 3:09 PM
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