How to Use Nokia Maps Without Losing Your Mind (or Money)

This is pretty much just a place holder for an upcoming Maps 3.0 expansion for this lens, but I thought this something you should know right away if you're considering upgrading to 3.0:

Your navigation licence can be upgraded from 2.0 to 3.0 by just updating Maps licences (more on that below), but once it's done you can no longer downgrade your licence to work with 2.0. You can downgrade your Maps application by formatting your phone, but your licence will be stuck at Maps 3.0.

So remember kids, if you have a licence, Maps 3.0 is for the duration, not just for testing. And new application versions are always volatile, so think about it a moment before upgrading.

Imagine Google Maps, but in a separate application on your phone. Then imagine a navigation feature in it.

(Actually, there is also a Google Maps application for mobiles.)

Nokia Maps is not compatible with all phones. It comes with certain phones and can be downloaded to others. See the list of Nokia phones that support or come with the application here.

Note: That page will also tell you which of those phones also have an internal GPS receiver or whether locating yourself with the phone will require an external GPS device. The application can't locate your position on its own.

In this article I'll mostly be referring version 2.0 of the application as that's the latest release for S60 phones (there's also another release for S40 phones and Maps 3.0 for S60s still in beta testing) as of this writing.

The one thing that makes Nokia Maps unique from the other mapping applications for phones is that the map files are free. You can download as many countries as your memory card can handle, delete them, update them, re-download as often as you like. The application itself is also free. I personally find this great because I don't own a car anyway, and all I ever use the application for is to find my way around cities. Even if you do own a car and want to use the application to plan driving routes, you can do so for free as long as you're willing to forego the navigation guidance.

The only thing that costs money (or at least earns money to Nokia - more on that in a moment) is the navigation feature. Without that feature, you still can use the application to locate yourself (provided you have a GPS receiver) and plan your routes. You just won't be guided there by voice or arrow while driving.

Navigation licences are sold by region and for a certain period of time only. You can find information about navigation licence costs here on Nokia's own website.

Then there are the costs that won't go to Nokia... I am of course talking about operator costs. What one doesn't necessarily realize is that the Maps application can and does connect online unless you specifically force it not to. If you have a contract with your operator that lets you download and connect as much as you like, this is no problem - at least as long as you're in your own country. When travelling, you'll be using your operator's roaming partner's network and getting their fees for network connections, and you might end up with a surprise bill of hundreds of euroes. It's better to turn this function off entirely!

Maps accesses the Internet without asking you in two cases:

1. To download map information when you're focusing on a area you haven't downloaded onto your memory card, and
2. To help get a GPS fix.

You can stop the application from downloading map data by keeping it Offline (Maps->Options->Tools->Download; to make this default, Maps->Options->Settings->Internet).

You can download map files to your phone's memory card using your PC's Internet connection with no extra operator costs if you download and use the PC application Nokia Map Loader, available here (scroll down - you don't need to select a phone model to download Map Loader), Mac version here. You can't save them on the phone memory, only memory card, and you can't download them directly to the phone, unfortunately.

But that's not all. You must also go to the phone's main settings and make sure that a feature called Assisted GPS is not on. Assisted GPS or A-GPS uses the Internet to help fix your GPS position. Since this is a phone function and not a Maps function, you won't find that setting in the Maps application.

Note, again, that you will always need a GPS receiver - either an external Bluetooth one or an in-built one - to get a fix. You can't get it just through the Internet alone.

The way I see it, there are two parts to the Nokia Maps - the application and the maps themselves. The maps exist on a server online and can be also downloaded to your phone's memory card or mass memory. (Mass memory is basically an inbuilt memory card - such as you'll find in models like N95 8GB or N96. It's not the same as phone memory, where the phone's operating system is stored. Map data can't be downloaded on to phone memory.)

There are two main reasons why you want to keep the map files on your memory card.

1. No operator costs for downloading them on the run. Even if you have a contract for free data transfer with your operator, this won't hold abroad.

2. Better Maps operation. There's only a limited amount of downloaded map data that the phone will keep, and it only ever downloads a certain area at once. You might search for a certain address and not find it, simply because that data is not within a certain distance from your current location. Navigation might be bumpy and take ages to calculate a route and then want to recalculate it every few minutes. None of this should occur if you have the map data safely on a compatible working memory card.

Some phones come with certain map files already on the memory card, but not all and never all the countries in the world. You can download them yourself and so also make sure they're the ones you'll be needing. Downloading map files is done with the Nokia Map Loader PC application. You'll need a USB connection. To be sure it will work all right, put the phone on Offline profile first and when the phone asks for a USB mode, select "Data Transfer". The files are saved to a folder called Cities on the memory card.

If you have Maps version 1.2 and update to 2.0, you will have to re-download the map files for compatibility reasons. Delete the Cities folder, put the Maps application in online mode (Maps->Options->Tools->Go online) and focus the application on any place in the world. That will recreate the Cities folder, but empty, and you'll be able to use Map Loader to re-download all the map files. This will take an Internet connection, though, so do it in your home WLAN if you want to avoid operator costs. Remember to put the phone back offline afterwards!

Say you opt for the navigation licence. Maybe you're a travelling salesman or a plumber or just like to make finding places easier for yourself. You buy a 1 year navigation licence for your region. Next month, your phone gets eaten by a shark.

Hey, it happens.

Issues also occur when putting a new SIM-card in the phone or when just exchanging your phone to a new model, when updating your phone's software, or when your phone has been swapped to a new one under warranty. Here's what you can do to hold on to your licence.

1. The shark scenario. If you lose your phone and SIM card both, call Nokia's helpline for your region. If you have your lost phone's IMEI (serial number), they can find the licence attached to it and transfer it to your new phone.

2. Phone swap. You have your old SIM, but you also have a new phone you want to transfer the licence to. If you had Maps version 1.2 on your old phone, call Nokia, there's nothing you can do yourself. But if you had Maps 2.0 and you still have your old phone at hand, put your SIM in it, update the Maps licence (Maps->Option->Extras->Licences->Options->Update), transfer the SIM to your new phone and update the Maps licences on that phone, too. Because the licence gets attached to both SIM and device, you can thus use the SIM to transfer the licence to your new phone.

If you don't have your old phone at hand and just putting the SIM in the new phone and updating won't work... you'll have to call Nokia's help line and they'll sort it out for you.

Note: You can only do this a given number of time before the licence gets locked on to the SIM alone. Of course, this might be what you want!
Note #2: Updating Maps licences requires the phone to take an Internet connection to check what licences are linked to your phone. Beware of operator costs - if at all possible, do this using your home WLAN.

3. Change of SIM. You've changed your SIM and now the navigation won't work. This one's easy. Just update the Maps licence (Maps->Option->Extras->Licences->Options->Update). If this doesn't work, you may have used the sim to transfer the licence between different devices too often (see point 2, above). If that's the case, call Nokia's help line.

4. Updated phone software. It's possible to update Nokia phone's software through their application Nokia Software Updater. (It's not usually necessary to update your phone, by the way, and I wouldn't bother unless your phone's actually not working correctly.) If you do this, A) Back up all your phone information, B) Note that your Maps version may change from 1.2 to 2.0, causing all sorts of trouble (see map file management above), and C) Your navigation licence will deactivate. Of these issues C is the easiest to solve. Just update Maps licences!

5. Maps application update. You update your Nokia Maps application from 1.2 to 2.0 (or from 2.0 to 3.0 if you're feeling adventurous). Licence stops working. Say it with me now... Update Maps licences!

That's it for now, at least. I might write some more once Maps 3.0 is officially released with all its kinks ironed out - I've had enough bad experiences not to dabble with phone applications too much while they're still in beta.

Please send me feedback below if you have more questions, find missing links or errors in the above text or have anything to add!

Scroll down beyond the feedback form for Amazon links to some Nokia phones with GPS and Maps 2.0 capability.