Mapping, GPS and Navigation devices are a very useful tool for any person, while the west and USA in general has more advanced solutions in this area than what is available in the Arab world. There has been local and International attempts to solve this issue.

On the web, google has done a good job in few Arab countries namely Dubai but its awesome Google Maps Navigation is only available for Motorola’s come-back mobile Droid. NDrive a Portuguese mobile developerlaunched last October navigation applications for the iPhone, for United Arab Emirates (UAE) , Saudi Arabia Morocco and Egypt, using TeleAtlas the same company that provides maps to Google Maps and Competes with Nokia’s Navteq.

From the region, Ayna the Lebanese company launched this year “Ayna Maps“that are also available via a number of mobile devices but unfortunately Ayna maps need internet connection to work, and since Mobile Internet connection is still costly Ayna maps is not an idle solution. In Jordan, Inside Jo from Jordan, developed an online map along with its own low cost GPS device that unfortunately did not get authorized by the authorities in Jordan!

Nokia 2710 Navigation Edition, The Affordable GPS Phone:

Nokia on the other hand, has went ahead faster than anyone, introducing mapping solution online via its Ovi maps and on its Mobile devices (From High End to Mid level). To push into mid and low market (the developing world), Recently Nokia unveiled the latest device in the company’s range focused on mapping and navigation, the Nokia 2710 Navigation Edition. The new arrival is GPS enabled and pre-loaded with Nokia Maps, making it the most affordable GPS device in Nokia’s broad portfolio.
Relevant maps are included on the device to save cost and make sure that just because you don’t have an Internet connection, your device isn’t rendered useless, an essential element for mobile mapping in order to be used in mobile handsets by the main stream users since Mobile internet connections are pricey.

Nokia 2710 will be available in the second quarter of 2010 estimated to cost, before taxes and subsidies, EU 110.

Nokia 2710: has a GPRS handset, a 2.2-inch screen, 2-megapixel camera and enough storage for 1,000 phonebook entries. It also sports Ovi Mail and Instant Messaging and it’ll keep the tunes turning with an MP3 player and FM radio. It also has a 3.5mm AV connector. The device will go for up to 18 days between charges in standby mode and will give up to four hours and 20 minutes talk time.

Nokia Adds Jordan to Ovi Maps:

After Bahrain, Iran, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, In the mapping and navigation availability, Nokia recently added Jordan to its Ovi Maps application. Adding rich local content and local maps that can be used directly on users mobile device turning them into a navigation systems.

“Having Ovi Maps on their device gives our consumers a new sense of their surroundings, with the possibility to discover new places and share them with their friends using SMS, MMS or Bluetooth.”said Bruce Howe, Head of Marketing Nokia Levant.

Ovi Maps application for your Nokia device is enhanced through additional features and services: high resolution satellite and terrain maps, rotation, tilting, night view and fly-overs and fly-throughs. Nokia’s Jordan Ovi maps was available during the month of November.

Walk from one place to another using WALK, the pedestrian navigation with routing optimized for those on foot, providing better orientation in a city or outdoors.

Or use DRIVE, the navigation takes you from A to B with visual turn-by-turn guidance. It helps you to locate yourself by giving information about the surrounding buildings, roundabouts and streets and in newer handsets points the direction in which you are walking using the handset’s built in compass for orientation.

Ovi Maps uses vector maps are provided by Navteq, which was acquired by Nokia in end of 2007. The map data of Jordan, is offered free of charge and includes detailed Road coverage of 28,621 Km covering 100 municipalities, including street names and street directions.

By this, Nokia has 100 percent of the total road network of Jordan covered including all the major highways connecting Jordan’s major cities. It also has 13.500 Points of Interests including hotels, restaurants, places of worship, shopping malls, petrol stations and many others.

Maps can be downloaded free of charge over the air directly to selected devices or by using the Nokia Map Loader on a PC. however since my Nokia 5800 died and I am currenlty testing now N900 which Ovi Maps is not supported on it yet, I could not test the new maps in Jordan. (See the video I recorded last month for a preview of Ovi maps in Dubai on N900.)

In addition, Nokia also launched a crowed sourced “Get to good things“website to Jordanian consumers, so that they can add their personal POI’s from Jordan and share with the world.

Ovi Maps for mobile is enhanced through additional features and services, such as:

• Better maps with hi-res satellite and terrain maps.
• Enriched Global POI information by Lonely Planet, Michelin and Wcities.
• Global Weather service with 24h and 5-day forecasts.
• Walk from a place to another – easy to use pedestrian navigation with routing optimized for pedestrians for better orientation in a city or anywhere outdoors.
• Drive with enhanced safety car navigation with enhanced safety features.

You can see Nokia’s Ovi Maps in action in dubai running on Nokia’s best and most powerful device to date -N900, via the below video presented by Nokia’s project manager during Nokia’s N Age Tour in Dubai lats month (Note: i will be posting in Arabic and English N 900 video review soon on ArabCrunch ):




(The video is a presentation of Nokia N900 by a Nokia Project Manager in Dubai. and I was asking him questions during the presentation. N900 has 4 desktop screens and Mac “Exposse” like view for multi view of all open applications.

N900 is a powerful mobile and considered Nokia’s top of the line:

N 900 Operating system is Maemo which is built using Linux, It has 600 Mhz ARM Cortex-A8 processor, 1GB of app memory, 3D Graphics accelerator with OpenGL ES 2.0 support. Built in memory 32 GB, 3.5 G and WLAN, GSM GPRS and EDGE, Integrated GPS, 800 x 480 touch-screen, Hard QWERTY keyboard, G MP cam, Dual LED flash, 800 x 480 resolution video. Maemo Browser based on Mozilla.)

Inside Jo is the 1st Jordanian startup to develop a GPS car navigation system. The company is a joint venture between Jordan based, Delaware, USA incorporated award winning backup company Genie-Soft  which was founded by a Jordanian young entrepreneur Muayyad Shehadeh in 2001, and Jordan based companyREBORN INDUSTRIES which specialized manufacturing of automation and electrical switchgear.

Inside Jo offer GPS Car Navigator device plus an online mapping portal for Jordan. It provides details of every street level with the names of each street in Amman (The capital of Jordan), something I never saw in any of its online mapping competitors. Inside Jo provides mapping solutions that not just tourists badly need but also a very handy solution for the residents’ of Jordan.

Online Mapping:

Inside Jo online mapping portal is up and running in beta mood, the website which is in English and Arabic promised soon, offers maps, city search, weather and entertainment guide in Amman.

“Maps” is the main section of the website and it offers you away to search the map by address or location, Inside Jo has added thousands of interest points that users can search for or add the missing ones.

Once you search for an interest point say “KFC” in this example, it shows you all the available locations of that interest point, when clicking at one of these locations, you get the telephone number and the address of the interest point and if you click read more you get to see the latest reviews of that spot or you can add your, though reviews are moderated before they can be displayed.

The other beauty of the system is that it can give you directions to that location from anywhere in the map, just right click on the map and choose “Drive to Here” and then go to your start point location in the map and chose “Drive from Here”. The website then displays a detailed map with the best route you can get, it also calculates the distance and the Taxi charge. In this example driving from Jordan University South Gate to KFC near six circle, is 8.8 KM long and costs 1.77 JD by Taxi, which is about what the Taxi fare costs. “The Get Directions” feature is the most important feature, because it provides direction from any location on the map to any other one you chose, this comes handy using the GPS device, however the web version comes short at providing written step by step directions just the rout.

Sharing came to the mind of the developers of Inside Jo, you can share the location of the map using a URL or an Embed option, or you can send current map by email or print it.

The “City Search” of the Inside Jo website provides you with a directory of interest point that spans from Restaurants with all its types, such as Arabic and Fast Food, to Religious Organizations which includes Churches and Mosques. Browsing through the interest points leads to a page for each interest point with its location on the map and the spot phone number, you can also see reviews or add yours and even bookmark or print the page. 

On Inside Jo website the entertainment section offers you with Cinema, TV guide and Radio sections. However for the time being, only cinema section works offering you what is currently showing and when in all Amman Cinemas and the location and phone number of each cinema house.

GPS Device:

The GPS Car Navigator device is called GNav and comes with no monthly fees only one time buying payment, however it is not available yet in the market, but will be available in July 2009, according to InsideJo website.

GNav comes with a touch screen visual and voice navigation system. Auto re-route, 2D or 3D map view, built-in point of interest  database and Customizable Route Methods an important feature to use during traffic jams, where you can  choose the way you want to navigate to use the most freeways, least freeways, fastest time, shortest distance and avoid toll roads. Exclude specific streets or freeways after a route is calculated to get there the way you want.

GNav is 4.3 widescreen, high-quality touch screen,  Weight220 g  and buttery life up to Battery life up to 4 hours, however the battery can be recharged via the car electric outlet (Lighter, 5V). The full list of GNav’s features can be found here.

Here is a video of how the device works:




# Inside Jo