Google Adds Landmarks To Driving Directions
It launched driving directions to Google Maps in April and has now added landmark related information which it crowd-sourced using MapMaker which allows users to edit maps and add points of interest, features, etc to maps. It now
combines this sourced landmark data, counted turns (“the 2nd right”), intersection names, and road names to the algorithm while calculating directions. It also introduced recently the ability to edit multiple segments of roads to add attributes and different names. Information being added by users is verified and moderated by Google employees, there is a discussion board on Google Groups. The new driving directions are also available on the mobile, the company blog said.
Our Take:
While Google’s maps did offer a quick solution to navigate through cities without having to buy a roadmap, driving directions were often inaccurate and failed to provide information when required; irrelevant results threw us off many times and road names were not always in sync with what residents called them. This addition of landmarks and multiple names will help fill the gap that exists between reality and a virtual map. However, Google might need to check the fonts or make sure both English and Hindi/Urdu scripts appear – it appeared that Lucknow was completely missing from the map and turned out to be because it was named in Hindi.
SatNav Partners Nokia To Offer Offline Maps For Some Handsets; Airs Grievance
After partnering with handset makers HTC, HP, iMate, ASUS and ACER to offer free maps for 412-plus cities in India (only on Windows-based phones, however), Hyderabad based SatNav Technologies has now tied up with top manufacturer Nokia to offer them to owners of N95 N95, E66, 6110, N82, 6210, E57, 6220, N78, N96 and the N73.
Users can download the application SatGuide from Satguide.in onto their mobiles, we were unable to as it redirected to a RapidShare link. The application is a 62.4 MB file and once downloaded, will not require GPRS connectivity, the maps are offline.
The catch is that users can access the application ten times – after which they will have to either reinstall it or upgrade by paying Rs. 2138. They will then not need to reinstall nor will they face recurring charges if they pay the one-time fee. SatNav is offering a Rs. 1000 cash back offer if the user upgrades within 30 days of the downloading the free version. The application has been downloaded 6856 times, according to the company.
OS Dominance & Monopoly Over Services
SatNav has interestingly spoken up against Nokia monopolising customers with its own mapping product – Ovi Maps (previously Nokia Maploader), which comes pre-installed on Nokia handsets. On the 5800D, this application is simply called “Location” and includes landmarks, GPS data and positioning. It does not offer an offline map.
SatNav has said, “Since Nokia promotes its own maps and their dealers/distributors have not been as receptive to SatGuide as compared to the response of Windows phone distributors, Nokia users were being deprived of the high quality extensive maps from SatGuide and their excellent localized after sales service and support for the Indian market.”
Yesterday, Microsoft lost a decade long anti-trust case on browsers – for using its Windows operating system dominance to push Internet Explorer to users. Nokia might take SatNav’s hint and offer mobile users a choice of options/services available by other vendors.
Sygic-MapMyIndia For GPS Handsets
Sygic and MapmyIndia have launched an application called MapmyIndia Sygic Mobile Maps that provides maps to 401 Indian cities and an interface for GPS navigation for handsets that are GPS enabled.
The application does not require GPRS connectivity and the maps can be purchased on MapMyIndia’s online shop and will later be made available on Sygic’s too. The price is a whopping Rs. 2490 and no offer related to it. The application does allow users to edit Points of Interest and set up alerts that will inform them as they approach an ATM or hotel or petrol pump etc. Will a mobile user want to invest and manually configure/personalise this application given the rate technology advances?
The application also allows iPhone users to integrate their contact details with the map and get directions to the street addresses – such a feature would have been enticing if it were enabled for all handsets. A similar phenomenon is occurring in the digital space as well with maps becoming more social and different technologies being synchronised for location-based news, games, communication and services.
Our Take: This attempt can be seen as one of the many slow ones to cut away at the barriers for adoption for GPS and maps in India, but issues continue to remain unaddressed: high prices of maps, connectivity issues and GPS being a power-hungry technology. We do not see much changing in the GPS/mapping market as yet.
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13 Comments until now.
surprised to see u write without comment on satguide being Rs 2138, and saying mapmyindia's app is a *whopping* 2490. the app is btw number 1 on itunes india app store, out of 100,000 other apps – a maps/gps app being number 1? obviously the market is changed. this is a full-fledged gps nav app – there is nothing to configure manually. wud hv appreciated u trying out and using the app before commenting on its usability and requirement.
btw for context – nokia maps comes preloaded for 3 months, and after that 1 yr subscription is 200 usd (8000 rs – is that whopping or what?). google maps contrary to what ppl say/believe is NOT free – it uses ur data connection, n unless u r the minority (not the tech savvy blogger types) who doesnt have an unlimited data plan – thats a bill of rs 1000 per month using google maps. is that whopping for u?
to be contd…
rohan
i havent even gone to the performance part of the spectrum – nokia maps has poor coverage, period. google maps is inaccurate/unreliable as u urself have mentioned, n satguide well – providing things free after having charged for the same can only be cuz its not selling, n likely points to the quality of the product.
i dont mean to be disrespectful – i hv tremendous respect for each of these 3 companies, they r special in their own right. but i wanted to clear up some of these misconceptions and obvious anomalies in statements. probably medianama n mapmyindia haven't gotten a chance to talk much / exchange notes on how things r going – but i think u r somewhat misinformed n since i have tremendous respect for ur blog (n i know ALOT of ppl who also rely on it) – wanted to set the record straight.
sorry preethi / nikhil for being so upfront :) i really do like u guys n medianama alot. want u guys to understand the context n delve deep into products/markets before making journalistic editorial opinions. happy to chat offline netime u have my mobile :)
rohan
Apart from the mentioned apps there is a service called Latlong for driving directions in Bangalore. The interesting part is that the directions are given through sms and is a free service. Say u want 2 go from MG Road to RT Nagar… all you do is send an sms to their num 9008890088 saying "MG Road to RT Nagar". You will get a reply sms with accurate directions with recognizable landmarks within a minute… It can be used on any simple handset.
You can also be used to search for prominent locations/buildings etc…. I feel that this simple service will touch a cord with the commonman more than any of the apps listed in the article..
I have downloaded on to my PC the maps from Satguide.in through Rapidshare after many many unsuccessful attempts. I have Navigator 6110. Now please let me know how do I load it on my Nokia 6110? Pls help
I have Ndrive India Map on my Iphone , Ndrive GPS software is a wonderful product , strangely the map is not upto the mark and covers only 45% of India. .
@Rohit – the NDrive software has maps from Navteq, the same as those on Nokia maps. So your statement that map is not up to mark is echoed by many users across India (just search web/forums, don’t take my word!)
You can try the Mobile Maps India product from Sygic software and MapmyIndia Maps. This is the #1 grossing app on iTunes App store out of 1,00,000 other apps since its debut 4 weeks back! I strongly believe you will find its map coverage to be vastly superior. You can read more about the solution at http://inav.mapmyindia.com
@subhron – for your Navigator 6110 check out http://inav.mapmyindia.com for the answer to your question
I still think it is too high a price. The only reason I called Rs.2490 "whopping" was because Satguide's price effectively came to half with the offer while ur app did not have any offers with it; which i should've expanded upon in my post.
Abt the app being #1 on iTunes Store, to be precise, it's the top amongst paid apps under the navigation category. Of the top 10 of them, only 1 other app catered to indian users – what does that say about the market? Has it really changed?
And the fact that the app is a popular download may not necessarily be an indicator of the average layman's acceptance as iPhone users are an exclusive lot even now. Also, the app may be interesting to users as a trial – there was a phase when a friend of mine would try out as many apps as he could download to bide his 1.5 hr bus journey daily. If you could share stats on how many people use the app regularly for their navigational needs, that would be useful. And, yes, we would definitely like to try out the apps but their price remains an issue.
I am not sure what "anomalies" u referred to in my article besides these, but i would like to put the record straight when i say that it is not for lack of trying to reach mapping/gps firms. There is very less info abt number of users, performance and hard data from these companies. if you'd like to talk in detail about the performance of your company, from a users', product, revenues and profitability perspective, we're game. Reach me at preethi@medianama.com
Dear Preethi,
Your article was brought to my notice today by a partner, also read the subsequent comments and would like to share our company’s perspective as follows for both your article and for comments from others;
* The clarity with which you have captured all points, while being neutral to all companies deserves a mention. If you do a google search for articles that compared us with competition, you will come across very often articles written by someone who knows one of our worthy competitors better than they know us, and unfortunately slant the entire article against us. So, yours is a refreshing change which is balanced and speaks facts.
* SatGuide is India’s 1st GPS Navigation solution, was a pioneer with its first product launch in 2005 when very few companies even knew how to use maps in applications that we had launched. Today we are a market leader, last year we had 100% share of the Windows Mobile market when that segment was doing well. All the brands you mentioned, offered maps free, but that was only because the Phone OEM paid for them! Saying that our product is not selling when our software is used by 90% of all those who use on board navigation in the country is not factually correct.
* Coming to our FREE strategy, if a product is not selling the right business strategy is to kill it, not start giving it away for free! When we found out that we were ruling the windows market but no distributor or dealer of nokia would touch us with a barge pole, we felt it was unfair. So worked on this alternate strategy, get consumers to feel the product, use it for 10 times, if they want they can reset their device and use it another 10 times or just upgrade for a great cash back offer. We believe this is an amazing innovation in the strategy to have users touch and feel what they are being made to pay for. Similar to all our earlier initiatives where we define the market trend and competitors just ape our business model, strategy, pricing plan, approach to market, sticking to onboard navigation, offering cheap AND best pricing not one over the other etc, end to end, in this case too we are pioneering the best way to get to a customer and have him take a call on what he likes before he actually spends the money.
* Subhron, if you have still not been able to use the application just get in touch with anyone at our customer support numbers on http://www.satguide.in and we will take care of you. If you had trouble downloading from rapidshare just check if your popupblocker is on in the web browser, when we put it on our site customers requested that it be made available on common servers where they can access easily, so it is now available at a wide range of sites.
Preethi, you are welcome to continue writing what you genuinely feel about us, if you think something is good, say so. Also, if you feel something stinks, tell us that too, so that we keep improving. Only in an open and sharing environment will this market grow and people start using GPS apps for their day to day life, else it still remains a ‘fancy tool’ that is used to show off to neighbors and friends. And that wont be good for any player in the market, so let all players focus on those things and not on adverse comments regarding each other :-)
Regards
Amit
Amit Kishore Prasad
Founder, MD & CEO
SatNav Technologies
http://www.satguide.in
@preethi – hmm go to itunes appstore – mobile maps india (by sygic n mapmyindia) is the #1 top grossing app across ALL applications, not just navigation. I will send u a mail wid a screenshot n if u do find it correct, which I am sure u will, appreciate ur clarification to users on this. Also, would love to speak to u more – anil/hemant will coordinate n we can meet at our office/ur office/ on the phone.
@amit – respect u a lot, n love wat satguide has done – I hv lived breathed n loved online maps n gps for the last 5yrs, n grown up seeing my parents create software for india n india’s digital maps since 1992 since I was 5!!! Satguide’s done a great job in creating this market along wid mapmyindia – so hats off to u as the visionary leader :) product to product tho – am sure users n media will tell u satguide doesn’t even compare to mapmyindia :) we can take this offline, I love ribbing u abt the quality of ur products :) :) :)
Seriously tho – am pretty happy thr is talk discussion news reviews debates acrimony and so on abt maps n gps – it means ppl do care nw. Only thng is like ne bubble – don’t get carried away n write without delving deep. Preethi – wud hv been gud if u used satguide mapmyindia n google products in depth before writing ur opinions. Y I say this? Mktg claims n business models n blogs n comments r one thng – but when the rubber hits the road, a user is spending either money or his time to use a product (website/mobile software/gps device) – n leave all the business side apart, a user cares abt a reliable usable n aesthetic experience. Its my strong contention tht google maps is nt a reliable map/direction experience (its jus a digital equivalent of a stranger on the road – sometimes correct sometimes wrong n malicious). Satguide is a bit more not much more reliable n def not a usable experience. As for mmi – we r for sure a reliable map experience constantly improving wid 400+ professional field surveyors n 150+ map specialists. N usability of the device n mobile software is phenomenal. the website we r fixing cuz it has become stale. Nehow this is just my contention :) if it doesn’t make sense, happy to take ur brickbats. If it does, wud love ur bouquets.
Preethi,
I will take this offline with Rohan, because competitors talking on common forum is like wrestling in the mud. You are getting dirty and you realise after some time that opposite party as well as viewers are beginning to enjoy it! For this forum, I just need to tell about us and woudl also like to share some suggestions about the market and industry;
(a) Strategy for Market Growth: Talking negative about anyone is not worth it, we need to talk about our own company’s positives, customers will appreciate that more and market will grow. Which benefits all in the medium and long term, that is a fact of business life. So please do not treat these responses as a demoralising factor to ignore our segment, one player’s attitude does not define an industry, specially it wont when it is a billion dollar one tomorrow.
(b) Creating Maps: There were companies and organisations that had maps even 20 years before we set up our company, but being able to put it into a navigation device needs a different level of investment, focus and execution. That is the reason why even after we piloted GPS Turn by Turn Navigation products since 2002, launched the commercial screen based version in 2005, the next company too 2 years and 2 months to launch theirs, and others too another 6+ months after that.
(3) Regarding quality of our products, factually incorrect points, if said a million times at 100s of forums, does not make it the truth. We should have some industry analyst find answers to the following questions; (i) Market share is the true answer, who is where today? (ii) Whose products are LFRs selling, why are consumers buying those off the shelf every single day? (iii) Which software did all PND Manufacturers bundle on their devices? ALL OF THEM! (iv) Whose Distributors are placing repeat orders and whose are churning every 3 months? (v) Whose online portal makes more sales? (vi) Who has more customer references of unknown people who gave their name and quote on their own accord? (vii) Whose software became a standard offering on ALL mobile phones in the country? (viii) Whose customer service is becoming a standard in the industry? Any neutral observe will confirm that SatGuide wins hands down on ALL these and the nearest Indian or International competitor would be so many light years away. No talk, marketing claim or blog comment, industry facts should speak. In addition;
(a) Hardware: Mio is the 3rd largest GPS Hardware company in the world, our chosen partner since almost 5 years now. We get one offer per week from a Chinese white label company offering products to us at 30% to 40% discount on our purchase price, which we refuse taking a hit on our margins, since our products are also priced at same levels as others. So Preethi, put in your review, (i) the hardware quality, design (ii) technical specifications (iii) testing specifications and approval and quality certifications (iv) quality of the accessories and therir robustness, (v) most importantly, the customer return rate even for products which are being used for 3-4 years be compared, if we score 4 out of 5, next one in line will score 1 or 2, anyone can run the check on their own.
(b) Software: Again there are multiple options in the market, Destinator is our partner for 5 years, if we didnt go to someone else it is because (i) their compression techniques are fantastic, all devices need small size datasets (ii) their compilation and route generation process is also among the best in the industry (iii) it is said that penetration of new technologies and concepts will happen when the product is easy for one’s grandma also to use, their interface is so simple and systematic that people are able to use it without any training or using the manual. So Destinator scores against almost everyone in the market.
(c) Now come to Maps, running a cat and mouse game on who has 100 cities and who has 200 is a marketing gimmick. We never cited that as a reason to diffrentiate even when we have 200 cities and neartest competitor was stuck at 26, the next one at 8 cities. Or when we had 1.4 million POIs and the nearest competitor was stuck at 450k while next was 80k POIs. So when the threshold of cities and POIs is crossed, fact of life is that everyone gets to almost the same plane. Customer references of 1000s of users who have used and vouch for the quality of map, how it helped them during their journeys etc are there with us. But the fact does remain that maps worldwide are always under updation, more so in countries like ours where rapid urban development is on. So when evaluating companies, the following could be the parameters; (a) what is the updation cycle committed by the company (b) how many map upgrades are free and what is paid (c) how easy is the process of map updation by client at his end (d) does the customer support team proactively contact to offer map updates or do they have to be hounded to give the same (e) if an error or change on road is pointed to the company, what is their process to correct it (f) how long does this process of correction take, can the company turn around the next version quickly?
Again, I can hold my head high, look at anyone in the eye and confirm that we score on all parameters, be in coverage thanks to several hundred surveyors, depth of data thanks to several dozen inhouse team experts, or the ability to give updates before anyone else thanks to our own technology team, faster too because we compile on our own in India with a dedicated compilation team, 100% work being done inhouse from map creation, to updation to compilation and release!
And by the way, we also conform to the laws in the country, we have never sent our map database outside to any other partner, it has always been protected in our environment and the data is not on a ‘frequent flyer’ list across many geographies as would happen if we didnt compile on our own!
As I said somewhere above, let the market and neutral observers speak, not make it one player’s word against the other, period.
Regards
Amit
Was good to have all perspectives included from industry, request medianama to keep coming up with such thought provoking articles and track industry trends in all these technologies. Thanks.
@Amit, @Rohan,
Good to see the competitive spirit and the passion, however it is best suited for and best shown in the marketplace.
1. As a potential customer, a cost of anything above 1K, seems high to me for maps – compared to the alternatives I have – research on google/bing maps which actually is lower than actual user reviews on travel websites (ghumakkar / oktatabyebye etc.). I dont know if I would even pay 500 for this, still. This includes the total cost, be it mobile data charges or anything.
2. trust your potential customers to have a little brain, let them decide if 2430 is indeed whopping compared to 2138 or whatever. I would doubt whether someone would actually buy a Satguide over a MMI based on this review. Of course, details need to be accurate, thats a different point. On the contrary if someone does not get the said offer at the said price at Satguide, it will reflect poorly on SatGuide.
Anil, completely agree with you. Customers are today buying across all Large Format Retail chains and distribution networks so they definitely know what is best. Also, no company can afford to say something and not do it, even verbally and definitely it is disaster if it is a press release, so whatever price we have committed and cash back offer to the customer is confirmed.