Report of the Week For Maps 2.0: Walking the Talk

A new Ambassador, Mahas33, has submitted a winner:

Title: Take Maps for a Walk

I was at the office, a generally iphone saturated environment and a co-worker without a car was asking for directions to a restaurant that was several blocks away. This seems like an easy situation, but some people without cars do not know the surrounding street names and feel uncomfortable walking blindly to a location, armed only with a list of street names (which could be wrong). I told him to take a look ay my n95 and the nokia maps application. I told him that the program would take him to the restaurant without him needing to worry about confusing directions from the five or six surrounding co-workers. He was sceptical at first, as he thought the gps wouldn’t work if he wasnt driving, but I pointed out that there is a “walk to” feature as well. This feature is a great benefit of nokia maps versus many of the other gps programs, offering only driving directions. I showed him how to search the restaurant location and then how to get started on his trip. He took my phone and headed off. When he came back after lunch, he stopped by my desk and told me that the maps program got him to the restaurant easilly. I sit in a busy area of the office, so several other co-workers came over to see what he was saying. Drew liked the program and was asking if it would work on other phones. I told him that it was a nokia program, but that there are many other nokia phones with gps and nokia maps. After Drew left, the others were interested in playing around with my phone. Rob had seen the phone before and was interested in the 5mp camera and seeing it in action. He mentioned that he had looked into the n95 before, but he thought the iphone would have more applications available for it. I explained to him that it is not the phone that has applications written for it, but the operating system. I told him about s60 and a few of the apps that are available. I mentioned that there are literally thousands of apps he could choose from and although his iphone does have many available, s60 does too. With the additional features and the available apps, he could have the best of both worlds. I have had many conversations with people about my s60 phones and even a few about nokia maps, but this is the first in-depth conversation where I actually lent someone my phone to demo it. This experience has inspired me to join the ambassador program and the next time I see them in the office, I will let them know about the program.

Thanks Mathas33! Mike will be contacting you to get an E71 loaner to you soon.