Should Apple Buy Nokia to fix Maps App?


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Given that the technology is now licensed to Microsoft, there's probably agreements in place to prevent anything useful from coming out of such an acquisition. Microsoft's lawyers aren't stupid. They know Nokia isn't in great financial shape, and that 'stuff' could happen.

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I would like to see Apple get their hands on some of Nokia's other valuables such as wireless charging and such. Imagine the additional patents and suppliers they could acquire. But I could settle for them acquiring Garmin.

I think they should buy Nokia, Nintendo, Yahoo!, and partner with Dyson and Tesla Motors.

Pandora, Grooveshark, Spotify and Oakley would be nice too. ;)

Edited by keuka
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apple maps uses tom-tom's data.... so they would be better off buying them and improving thier data.... mapinsight for corrections.

however there are multiple data providers all patched together (tom-tom is the largest amount of data though), so that's the product of that result they have on thier hands....

"But Bardin says that Apple has taken a huge bet by partnering with TomTom, a maker of traditional GPS hardware that?s morphing into a mapping-data provider??Apple went out and partnered with the weakest player,? Bardin says. ?They?re now coming out with the lowest, weakest data set and they?re competing against Google, which has the highest data set.?
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I don't think either Microsoft or Nokia would let that happen.

An aggressive buyout going straight to shareholders makes the views of management of both companies irrelevant,

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I would like to see Apple get their hands on some of Nokia's other valuables such as wireless charging and such. Imagine the additional patents and suppliers they could acquire. But I could settle for them acquiring Garmin.

I think they should buy Nokia, Nintendo, Yahoo!, and partner with Dyson and Tesla Motors.

Pandora, Grooveshark, Spotify and Oakley would be nice too. ;)

They should also buy some clothing companies and start the Apple Apparel Store, selling nothing but black turtlenecks and jeans.

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Can't say is Apple is thinking about buying Nokia or not, but I think Apple would be better off learning from the maps fiasco and making improvements instead of looking for someone else to buy.

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While Nokia's mapping solution is better than Apple's, it's not that much better. I don't see any reason why Apple can't achieve the same level on their own. Whether they'll catch up with Google anytime soon is a different story altogether.

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I've seen the progress of Maps since Beta 1 four months ago, and it has nothing to do with what it was in that time.

I do believe that within the next release of iOS, they will have one of the best mapping systems out there. And yes, they had to release it someday because these things require user feed-back, unless you buy an awesome database from a competitor.

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To make a good world map you need much more than a month. It takes years.

Bing is not a mapping company. They use several map makers, but mostly Nokia's Navteq, mainly except Zenrin for Japan.

Google partnering with dozens, if not hundreds of regional map makers. Many cities and provinces around the world have several their own map maker. Nothing prevents Apple from partnering with them as well.

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I've seen the progress of Maps since Beta 1 four months ago, and it has nothing to do with what it was in that time.

I do believe that within the next release of iOS, they will have one of the best mapping systems out there. And yes, they had to release it someday because these things require user feed-back, unless you buy an awesome database from a competitor.

Like most mapping solutions, the maps are stored server side. Apple don't need to update iOS to update errors in maps, or add points of interest. They're doing so on a daily basis.

Secondly, I wonder how many of you bashing Apple maps are actually iOS owners? Despite the deserved negative publicity Apple maps actually isn't that bad. Yes it has some very silly mistakes it in, but when you're trying to map the whole world that's to be expected. On the whole it's fine for general use.

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Like most mapping solutions, the maps are stored server side. Apple don't need to update iOS to update errors in maps, or add points of interest. They're doing so on a daily basis.

Well, Google does it once per several years... Maps are nice, but not up-to-date.

Secondly, I wonder how many of you bashing Apple maps are actually iOS owners? Despite the deserved negative publicity Apple maps actually isn't that bad. Yes it has some very silly mistakes it in, but when you're trying to map the whole world that's to be expected. On the whole it's fine for general use.

Moreover, There are also many mapping programs out there. And Google is not in better condition. In Russia, for example, Google Maps are not popular in Russia on Android. Just from first launch people installing Yandex Maps and 2GIS for maps and POIs and Navitel or PROGOROD for navigation. Yandex Maps comes preinstalled on most devices. And there are rumors that Apple will partner with Yandex for Russian maps and with Yahoo, which is using Zenrin, for Japanese Maps

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I would like to see Apple get their hands on some of Nokia's other valuables such as wireless charging and such. Imagine the additional patents and suppliers they could acquire. But I could settle for them acquiring Garmin.

I think they should buy Nokia, Nintendo, Yahoo!, and partner with Dyson and Tesla Motors.

Pandora, Grooveshark, Spotify and Oakley would be nice too. ;)

Wireless charging is universal standard Nokia licensed from a third party. There are already other devices compatible with the same system, QI I believe it is.

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While Nokia's mapping solution is better than Apple's, it's not that much better. I don't see any reason why Apple can't achieve the same level on their own. Whether they'll catch up with Google anytime soon is a different story altogether.

You can't be serious? Apple is nowhere even close to Nokia's mapping system. Barely google can keep up with them. :/

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