Nokia Map Loader has seen many updates, bug fixes, and even a new feature or two. And of course Nokia managed to squeeze a shop for navigation licenses and city guides into their loader program.
But some things didn't change. Some recycled text from an old blog entry:
The old requirement for Windows with .net framework is still there. It still won't work on Mac or Linux systems. You still can't download maps over WiFi or 3G with the Symbian browser of your phone. In terms of unnecessary overhead, Nokia Map Loader is still as badly designed as ever. All those megabytes won't even tell you which maps you already have installed on your phone. And if you update one map, the new map loader still erases every other map you already had loaded on your phone so you'll have to download all of them all over again.
All these issues remain unfixed. Well, almost all. Because after what seemed like eternity, Nokia finally made a version of their Map Loader for Mac.
The new Mac version of Nokia Map Loader (MacLoader? iMaps?) is in early beta testing stage, so it is still full of bugs, erors, flaws, SNAFUs and other nasty little things to keep Nokia's programmers off the streets. With a cold finnish winter coming up that's not necessarily a bad thing ;)
Issue one: Map Loader for Mac is not for all Macs. You'll need Leopard, the latest version of Mac OS X. This is the equivalent of a Windows program that doesn't work on Windows XP. Some quotes from visitors of Nokia's Beta Lab blog:
- will there be a Tiger version? [Nico]
- Sorry, no plans for a Tiger version. [Steve A, product manager of Map Loader for Mac]
- No Tiger version = not for me. It’s like developing for Vista only. [Sergey Zak]
- Another vote for Tiger support! [Akos Polster]
- There should be at least 10.4 compatibility. [Ilgaz]
- ...after waiting patiently for 19 months I am somewhat miffed to discover you are ignoring OS X 10.4 users. So I guess there is no point in hanging on for any other PC Suite applications...? [Golux]
Issue two: that noisy iTunes won't keep quiet:
- Can maploader disable iTunes transfers temporally, I don’t want it to be looking and transfering songs while I’m using map loader. [Fernando]
- Oh apparently you cant cancel the “Preparing iTunes transfers” or else Map Loader does not work [Fernando]
- Get Nokia Media Transfer to be more silent about transferring things when I’m using Map Loader.[Fernando]
- We have a new version of NMT coming which will improve the interaction [Steve A, product manager of Map Loader for Mac]
Issue three: not all Nokia phones seem to understand MacSpeak.
- Nokia N95: This phone doesn’t seem to work with Nokia Map Loader [Fernando]
- I have tried Map Loader for Mac 1.0. on my Mac running 10.5.5 and connected to my N95-1 V30.0.015 with Nokia Maps 2.0 but it will not work! I get a message saying “The phone does not seem to work with Nokia MapLoader” This is somewhat disappointing. [Atlantean]
- When my E51 is connected via USB I start the loader which begins to search installed maps on the phone. This seems to work. Then the program tries to download something from the Maps website - and fails: “Map catalogue loading failed Map Loader couldn’t download the list of available map regions…” [olive]
- I’m using a 6120 and I’m getting the error: Map catalogue loading failed. Map loader couldn’t download the list of available map regions. Possible causes include a lack of network connectivity or a problem on the maps server. [Phil]
- Doesn’t xork for me on my N82 [oNico®]
- It doesnt wor on my E71 (110.07.27) [...] “Map catalogue loading failed. Map Loader couldn’t download the list of available map reagons….” [Herbert]
Issue four: there's more than Windows and Mac alone. Unanswered questions from the Nokia Beta Labs site:
- Linux, anyone? [And now...]
- Is there any intention to make softwares to work with Linux? [MaXeR]
- Linux - Not today. [Steve A, product manager of Map Loader for Mac]
Issue five: Nokia Map Loader is a closed source program. According to the feedback on Nokia's blog, that's not a good thing:
- It’s sad that Nokia think they’re doing something good by releasing SW for the Mac … Just publish the specs, protocols, fileformats etc. and let the opensource community have a go at it. We’d have Windows, Mac, Linux, BSD and possibly even S60 (think about it, who needs an extra computer, when, say, a N82 is so powerful by itself) maploaders by now … [Erling Jacobsen]
Nokia Map Loader for Mac is far from ready yet. The same applies for the old PC version too. But at least it's a small step in the right direction.
And Steve A, the product manager of Map Loader for Mac, has a refreshing view on Map Loader alternatives: "We are not trying to create a monopoly on Map downloading. BTW you mention about checking the server for updates. That is actually in the Map Loader. As for deleting specific countries off of the device, yes it is something we would like to do, but not for version 1.0."
That's a welcome change after Nokia's attempts to force the Nokia Map Loader Alternative offline.
Choose your weapon. Your options are:
Nokia Map Loader for Windows
- Required operating system: Windows XP or Windows Vista (Win2K or earlier won't work)
- Required extra software: Microsoft .net framework
Nokia Map Loader for Mac
- Required operating system: Mac OS X Leopard (Tiger or older won't work)
Required extra software: Nokia Multimedia Transfer version 1.3 or higher
Nokia Map Loader Alternative
- Required operating system: anything you like
- Required extra software: any web browser you like
• Nokia Maps (official site)
• Nokia Map Loader for Mac at Nokia Beta Labs (halfway official)
• Nokia Map Loader Alternative (as unofficial as it gets)
No comments:
Post a Comment