Nokia’s HERE Maps has been pretty popular since it launched on Android recently. It’s been getting relatively often updates, and with those updates have come new features. The latest update brings in a pretty cool feature, actually. With the latest update you are able to share where you are going. But not only that, you can share the route you’re going to take to get there. So for instance if you’re heading to someone’s house, you can show them how you are going to get there. It’s a pretty neat feature. It’s worth noting that this is currently only available to beta users. But will likely make its way to the stable version very soon.
Basically, how HERE does this is they have a Share button at the bottom of the app. So you can use Android’s built-in share feature. Then you can share the directions as plain text. At the bottom of the post there will be a link which you can click and open the directions in the app. You can use this feature to quickly email directions to someone, as well as sending to yourself in case you’re driving through an area that won’t have signal.
This is a feature that may not get used all that often, but it is nice to have it. If you’re not already signed up as a beta tester, I’d suggest doing so. All you need to do is join this Google Group to get started. Many don’t know Nokia for their mapping tech, but they do quite well. I used HERE Maps on a recent trip to Shenzhen and it worked really, really well.
While Google Maps is a great option, it’s still nice to have good alternatives to use on your smartphone when traveling. For instance, HERE Maps is really good in places where Google is blocked, like China. While it may not be baked into Android Auto, yet. It’s still a good choice. Hopefully Google will open up Android Auto a bit so that we can choose to use Nokia Maps or another mapping app. Instead of being stuck with Google’s Maps.