AfterDawn: News

Google Maps Navigation now available in 11 new countries

Google has launched the popular free Maps Navigation turn-by-turn GPS in 11 new nations, says the search giant, while adding new language packs, as well, to the Search by voice feature.

Android 1.6+ users in Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland can now use the turn-by-turn voice guidance, as long as they update to version 4.2.



Until this week, the turn-by-turn was only available in the U.S. and the U.K.

Google first announced the Maps Navigation app last year, and other mobile companies have adopted similar approaches, like Nokia's Ovi Maps, in an effort to catch up.

The search giant says voice search was first developed for English, and then for Mandarin Chinese and Japanese.

Search by voice can run on the iPhone and BlackBerry phones, as well.



Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 9 Jun 2010 11:38

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• 2 comments

• luckyo

  Looks like nokia's gamechanger really got the ball rolling. With google maps being free, and available for more then just nokia phones as nokia maps are, the death of pay-to-use GPS navi is probably getting closer.
  
  Granted google maps has ways to go before it gets even close to competition. Nokia maps alone covers almost entire world, and is available in dosens of languages.

  9.6.2010 15:01 #1

• dali

  So, when will this thing be available to us, Symbian users? If it's been done to challenge the Ovi Maps, I'd like to try and compare them by myself. But, the last time I checked it out, the last version available for Symbian was still 4.1.

  14.6.2010 04:26 #2