Hartti Suomela's Forum Nokia Blog

Java ME and Flash Lite expert in Forum Nokia Americas, Mountain View. Besides mobile technologies, interested in HCI and the use of technology in sports.

FN Developer Day - Maps and Navigation API

hartti | 14 October, 2007 17:15

This is the first time I am attending a Forum Nokia Developer Day (or Forum Nokia Champions Day) event, which really runs for two days for the name "Day" is a little misleading. This time the event is organized just before the Symbian Smartphone Show in London on Oct 16th and 17th. It looks like about 50 people are attending the event (or at least I was able to count that many people attending the first session on Sunday (yes, Sunday – some people are also working on Sundays!).

The first session by my esteemed colleagues Jure Sustersic and Lucian Tomuta was about the soon-to-be-released Map and Navigation Framework/API. Here are my short notes on the API (I’ll skip the coding details as my Symbian C++ knowledge is not strong enough to allow me to note any details without making huge mistakes…)

The API relies on (copyrighted) navigation data provided by third parties (like Navteq and TeleAtlas) and therefore the commercial application developers utilizing this API have to pay for a license – the license model is fixed fee per application activation. The license also prohibits you from developing a new fleet management application but an extension to an existing one is allowed. There is no license fee for non-commercial applications (like freeware).

What are then commercial applications? Basically any enterprise applications, or any applications getting revenue in some form or another. And the licenses can be bought in bulk – I think the licenses will be available in piles of 1,000, 2,000, and 5,000.

You can use this API on any S60 3rd Edition FP2 devices. In addition, you can run the same application on S60 3rd Edition and 3rd Edition FP1 devices, but an additional SIS file needs to be installed (that is basically the navigation provider application also known as Nokia Maps).