Nokia: No plans to make Nokia Drive Windows Phone app available to other devices

By Tom Warren, on 24th Nov 11 1:42 pm with 11 Comments

Nokia Drive

Nokia has rejected rumors that it’s planning to make Nokia Drive available for other Windows Phone devices.

Reports earlier this week suggested that the Finnish handset maker was planning to open up its exclusive Windows Phone apps to other devices at a cost. Nokia’s communications Director, Mark Squires, rejected the idea over Twitter on Thursday. “Folk’s Nokia Drive will not be made available for other WP OEMs,” said Squire. ” It comes on our Lumia range and there are currently no plans to change that.”

 Nokia’s Music, Maps and Drive applications have all been ripped from their Lumia devices and ported over to non-Nokia devices. The applications are all available for Windows Phone devices, providing you’re using an unlocked device via Microsoft’s official developer registration or the ChevronWP7 labs tool. The current state of the Windows Phone Marketplace allows users to download XAP application packages direct from Microsoft’s servers and sideload them providing their device is developer unlocked. Windows Phone 7.5 “Mango” includes support for a new type of application encryption that prevents the piracy seen today. Microsoft is reportedly waiting to ensure that the majority of Windows Phone users have upgraded to Windows Phone 7.5 “Mango” before enabling the encryption support. The support will wrap XAP packages in a new layer of protection, preventing them from being sideloaded after they are published and downloaded from the Marketplace.

  • Impartial

    :D Tom you need to give your car a good clean up! (nah just kidding, my car is more of a dump and its cool that way, no stress when people drop their fricking ice cream on the seat!)

    • http://www.winrumors.com Tom W

      haha it’s not actually my car :)

  • http://twitter.com/kledsonfirmino Kledson Firmino

    This is the time for other device manufacturers to produce their own applications like Nokia Maps and make available free of charge to users and not left behind in competition with Nokia. For example, HTC could well produce its own HTC Drive for offline use.

    • http://twitter.com/efjay01 Ef Jay

      Or you could just buy a quality navigation application, like Navigon or Turn by Turn.

    • Collin5

      Keep dreaming… it’s not about the sat nav app, it’s about the mapping data. Licensing mapping data is very expensive, making it impossible to offer something comparable free of charge. The only reason Nokia can do it is that they own Navteq (from which MS has also licensed mapping data for bing maps, but only for the U.S.).

  • https://profiles.google.com/christopher.gull/ CG

    MS needs to skip sideloading.

  • http://twitter.com/Salem309 Ahmed Salem

    Come oooooon, Nokia! This would be amazing opportunity to market your products for those who use your rivals products!

  • Dalgarven

    Umm at the moment, whilst its a very handy app to have, its not in the same league as the Ovi Maps on previous Nokia’s. That has speed limits, is available without having to be online, and of course the surfer dude voice. Such a bummer he is not on there dude!

    Having a mapping facility in the deepest darkest, forest in the UK where the only signals are satellites and bleating sheep is very handy.  

    Waiting on the update…

  • Anonymous

    If Microsoft is stupid enough to really block sideloading apps and piracy they’ll go ahead and kill the platform.

    Whether you admit it or not the reality is that piracy is required to keep the platform popular, growing and making people buy phones.

    Microsoft cannot possibly be that stupid.

  • http://www.facebook.com/tony.gorham Tony Gorham

    I would probably buy it because the functionality can be improved and they have great quality map data. That said, it totally makes sense to keep this as Nokia only, its a USP or Unique Selling Point for the non marketeers out there.
    I have an HTC Mozart and a Titan on the way. I can see value in selling it to me because if I like it then it would help me choose Nokia in a year or so when they have killer phones and the software is bundled, just be sure to make it expensive for non Nokia phones, maybe $50 would do it, still cheaper than a dedicated SatNav device but on your phone – awesome
    BTW I have turn by turn – its OK but Nokia maps will probably be more accurate.

  • Wellwisher

    You are the only one reported that Nokia is going to make it available for other OEM devices, yesterday. Today you are reporting that its not so. Pure BS. Stop writing for daily traffic.