Nokia City Lens brings augmented reality to Nokia Lumia

Published by Pino Bonetti on May 8, 2012

GLOBAL – My first and most vivid memory of augmented reality is a scene in Terminator 2 where Arnold Schwarzenegger walks in a biker bar to collect some clothes. Back then I didn’t know I was going to write one day about this technology…

Nokia City Lens doesn’t have anything to do with Skynet or John Connor: it is a great location based augmented reality service, which is expanding our portfolio of Nokia exclusive apps for Windows Phone. If you have a Nokia Lumia 710, Nokia Lumia 800 or Nokia Lumia 900, you can download it now from Nokia Beta Labs where you can leave your feedback and contribute to improve the app while we are polishing and refining its feature set.

What I like the most in this app is that you can keep you head up when you’re using it. Instead of looking for a place on a map and look down on your smartphone, with Nokia City Lens you are actually looking at the world around you through your smartphone.

CityLens Camera View

Digital maps are indeed very useful and we all use them every day. They help us finding the places we are looking for and they are giving us directions to get there. This is why we have developed Nokia Maps. But sometimes you need a new way to orientate yourself and recognize the places in your immediate vicinity. This is where Nokia City Lens is helpful.

So what exactly can you do with Nokia City Lens (beta) for your Nokia Lumia?

  • You can instantly see what’s around you: landmarks, restaurants, hotels, shops and public transport stations visually right on your phone
  • Select your interests in many different categories: Nokia City Lens will filter the points of interests and present your choices
  • All the details at a glance: simply tap to read reviews, descriptions and destination information
  • One tap to call or navigate to the location
  • Share a place with friends via email and SMS or via the built-in sharing feature of Windows Phone

Grab your copy of Nokia City Lens now, from the Nokia Beta Labs. And if you haven’t installed it yet, make sure to check out the video at the top to see how you’ll benefit from this in a real-life environment.

Comments

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000182633381 Thor Olav Sørensen

    Awesome!

  • Anonymous

    love it

  • http://www.facebook.com/mark.moreira Mark Moreira

    Quite cool…Just a little dated database for my location (London, Ontario, Canada), but it is just a beta.

    As much as I love all the individual Nokia apps, this + Nokia Maps + Nokia Transit + Nokia Drive in one app would be nice to see in the future!

    • http://twitter.com/haikus Pino

      Hi @facebook-503035690:disqus, we are consciously developing separate apps to address different everyday needs. In the future they will work more closely together, but they won’t be part of a monolithic app.

      • http://www.facebook.com/mark.moreira Mark Moreira

        Thank you for your reply!
         
        Thats ok, I will still use them :) The Nokia apps are seriously well done.

  • http://www.facebook.com/mark.moreira Mark Moreira

    Quite cool…Just a little dated database for my location (London, Ontario, Canada), but it is just a beta.

    As much as I love all the individual Nokia apps, this + Nokia Maps + Nokia Transit + Nokia Drive in one app would be nice to see in the future!

  • Anonymous

    Not available in Ireland ??

    • http://twitter.com/haikus Pino

      Nokia City Lens may not be immediately installable for your geographic
      region. If you cannot immediately install Nokia City Lens,  we suggest
      you try again in a few days.

  • Anonymous

    ok, but for Symbian need too, right? 

  • Anonymous

    ok, but for Symbian need too, right? 

  • Anonymous

    Is it really worth the effort to port this application from the growing and expanding Qt platform to the sinking rescue vessel Windows Phone?

  • Anonymous

    Is it really worth the effort to port this application from the growing and expanding Qt platform to the sinking rescue vessel Windows Phone?

  • Anonymous

    Waste of time. Nokia already lost 70% of its value under Microsoft rule.
    I will be replacing mobiles for my family this summer and it’s not going be Lumia.
    I would consider Symbian Belle but it’s not available in the USA
    Please. Do I have to beg to take couple thousands dollars for the purchase out of my hands?

    • http://twitter.com/haikus Pino

      Hi @Kadusch:disqus and @JasonBoss:disqus, imo we have already thoroughly discussed on these pages Nokia’s strategy with Windows Phone, which is a very wealthy platform.

      • Anonymous

        Since Nokia is still driving its buisness into the ground there is still more than enought to discuss.

      • Anonymous

        LOL!

  • Anonymous

    Waste of time. Nokia already lost 70% of its value under Microsoft rule.
    I will be replacing mobiles for my family this summer and it’s not going be Lumia.
    I would consider Symbian Belle but it’s not available in the USA
    Please. Do I have to beg to take couple thousands dollars for the purchase out of my hands?

  • http://www.facebook.com/lou.andy.7 Andy Lou

    The video itself is faid. It should be an AD with happiness and convinience, not a stuff from Nokia to explain with boring words. Use story…pls… …. creativity….freedom…delightful…I can’t see any emotional attachement in this video…Your video is for your consumer…

    • http://twitter.com/haikus Pino

      Hi @facebook-1474744068:disqus, I’m sorry the video doesn’t appeal you. Wanna try out Nokia City Lens anyway?

  • http://www.cheapsmartphonesforsale.com/ Cheap Smartphones

    There are only a few points in this app thats missing in the google maps app but  having an alternative is good and is a good move for nokia

  • Abigail Chang

    how about Lumia 610?

    • http://twitter.com/haikus Pino

      Hi @google-91b74ddf31bac82fd57ab5a238d65a0d:disqus, Nokia City Lens is not available for Nokia Lumia 610, because this smartphone does not have a compass, which is needed for augmented reality to work.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=518987675 Gavin Lanata

    Looking good so far. Question on its calibration. I foud that a resturant nearby was appearing downwards from where I was standing. Its about .3 of a mile down the road. Is that expected at the moment or do I need to do something?

    • http://twitter.com/haikus Pino

      Thank you @facebook-518987675:disqus for your feedback. During the beta phase we are trying to make sure that these problems get fixed. You definitively didn’t do anything wrong ;-) Just let us know if it happens more often.

      • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=518987675 Gavin Lanata

        Stopped doing what it was doing now and can’t recreate it. Also on the UI, will there be some kind of live tile? Maybe you could set a range and on the tiles it showed you how many venues were in that range. Just looks a little too “still” but the tiles and their icons look great. Also found a pub not too far from where I live i didn’t know about. That’s going to be investigated.

        • http://twitter.com/haikus Pino

          I agree with you, live tiles are so cool that we should find clever ways to use them. We will definitively introduce more features in the future ;-)

        • http://twitter.com/haikus Pino

          I agree with you, live tiles are so cool that we should find clever ways to use them. We will definitively introduce more features in the future ;-)

        • http://twitter.com/haikus Pino

          I agree with you, live tiles are so cool that we should find clever ways to use them. We will definitively introduce more features in the future ;-)

  • Anonymous

    Is this compatible with Symbian?? I need it for my symbian phones which are much better than Lumia. 

    • http://twitter.com/haikus Pino

      Hi @droopyar:disqus, you can find the Symbian version of Nokia City Lens at http://betalabs.nokia.com/apps/nokia-city-lens

      • Anonymous

         Thanks, i have a 5800 phone and seems it is only compatible with symbian3 and above.

      • Anonymous

         Thanks, i have a 5800 phone and seems it is only compatible with symbian3 and above.

    • http://twitter.com/haikus Pino

      Hi @droopyar:disqus, you can find the Symbian version of Nokia City Lens at http://betalabs.nokia.com/apps/nokia-city-lens

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  • http://twitter.com/JonSwanepoel Jon Swanepoel

    Is it possible to tap a location/address in City Lens and have Nokia Drive do the navigation?

    • http://twitter.com/haikus Pino

      Not yet, @twitter-409972175:disqus, but this is a feature we are currently working on.

  • http://twitter.com/HermannGrieder Hermann Grieder

    Where do the reviews for places come from? and how can i contribute when i went to a place or how can i upload a picture?

    • http://twitter.com/haikus Pino

      Hi @twitter-226756304:disqus we integrate reviews from local guides, from social networks like Qype and also user reviews from Nokia Maps. You can use Nokia Maps on your Lumia or maps.nokia.com to contribute with photos and reviews.