...the Nokia N97 mini (but not the N97 itself), the enterprise-focused E72 and E55 handsets, the Nokia 5800 in XpressMusic and Navigation editions, the Nokia E52, Nokia 5230, Nokia 6710 Navigator, Nokia 6730 classic and Nokia X6. Support for several other phones that are already on the market will be added over the coming weeks, Vanjoki said.
From March, all new GPS-enabled, Symbian-based Nokia smartphones will come with the new Ovi Maps, and will be preloaded with maps for the country of sale.
According to Vanjoki, the new Ovi Maps will in future support Nokia's Linux-based Maemo platform, which powers the company's N900 handset.
Nokia bought the navigation company Navteq in 2007 for $8.1bn (£4bn at the time). Navteq's technology now underpins the Finnish firm's navigation services.
Nokia's launch shows "the writing's on the wall for navigation revenue", Forrester analyst Charles Golvin commented on Thursday.
"Google's move clearly punctured the navigation service balloon," Golvin wrote on his blog. "Nokia could have held out longer, but every day that passed would have weakened their position."
When Google announced its free turn-by-turn navigation service in October, the news immediately hit the shares of navigation companies such as TomTom and Garmin. That effect has now been repeated — at the time of writing on Thursday morning, TomTom's shares had dropped 14 percent on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, and Garmin's shares were down 2.5 percent on the Nasdaq.
The update will make Nokia phones much more competitive against Android devices, as Google only provides free navigation in the US for now, according to Golvin.
He added that Ovi Maps was "more operator-friendly", as vector-based graphics place a much lighter load on the network and the feature will work even when out of network range.
A Google spokesman, asked whether the company might make its turn-by-turn navigation services available outside the US, said Google never pre-announces new services.
Talkback
I am not clear about what, exactly is 'free'. I have a 6700 handset (not mentioned in article with current maps loaded.
I had understood that using the map system would be free, as also implied in the article, but I get charged (for data transfer) by my provider (O2). I did ring them to check.
I have yet to call Nokia.
Can anyone shed light in meantime?
Nokia maps have been free,but if you wnated voice assisted instruction during your journet - you had topay (there was an initial trial period 90 dyas?)
This new release is improved and includes the voice instruction along with street pronouciations and it's free.
The app can make use of any Internet connection to get maps, taffic info etc, and your carrier may charge data usage depending on your contract. But, you can download and install any of the available maps directly to the phone so it will function in isolation of any data connection - this is essential from many trips where there is no phone/data signal.
Note: the article say N97 is not supported but I installed it and it works fine.