Next mini milestone in Nokia Maps evolution

ESPOO, Finland – As mobile mapping fuses ever-more irreversibly with location-based services, it’s becomes clearer and clearer where this breed of context aware application is headed. The answer? Significantly more localized, to the point where your personal space is quickly becoming hugely populated with invaluably integrated morsels of info. And the latest large-scale contributer to this pot of on-the-go context aware knowledge within Nokia Maps 2.0 is Lonely Planet – finely detailed location-based knowledge for over 100 destinations are now downloadable to Nokia Maps.

The city guides are stuffed with granular detail on every location, with info ranging from the best places to lay your head at night, to popular sights and the must-visit places to catch a bite to eat. Each mini guide is available as a single add-on that you can suck into Nokia Maps 2.0 for a one-off charge of EUR 7.99, which you can access in the Guides section in the Extras menu.

Nokia’s head of media partnerships and context based services, Maximilian Schierstadt, commented on the new deal:

“Lonely Planet is a well known brand amongst travellers and stands for adventure and editorial independence. We are very excited to offer their expert local recommendations and itineraries to our Nokia Maps consumers, which will allow Nokia to continue to innovate and enable compelling location aware experiences.”

This was echoed by Stephen Palmer, CEO, Lonely Planet Publications:

“This is a genuinely transformational deal, which makes Lonely Planet content readily available regardless of time or place. It will help all those questions which travellers frequently have on the road such as ‘What should I explore today’ or ‘where should I go for dinner tonight?’ Together with Nokia we will help more travellers connect profoundly with their world, every day.”

What do you reckon to this new batch of content for Nokia Maps 2.0? Do you use the service? If you have let us know what other stuff have you added to it, or things you’d like to see available for Nokia Maps 2.0 in the comments section below.

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Photo from The Wandering Angel

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Tags | conversations, GPS, LBS, Location, lonely planet, Maps, Nokia, Nokia Maps 2.0