This is a piece of genius. You know when you’ve just taken your N95 out of its packaging and you wait patiently for the GPS to activate… THEN you flick up the Maps application… only to find that you’ve only got the basics. Total arse. If you want everything — the enhanced, proper service — you have to download and pay for it.
Not anymore.
amAze is LocatioNet’s free mapping and navigation service which works on regular mass-market mobile handsets. It gives regular java-enabled handsets access to mapping, satellite imagery, route-planning, weather forecasts and locally relevant search information. AND voice-guided navigation if you’ve got yourself a bluetooth GPS — or if you’ve got an N95 and patience.
I met LocatioNet’s President, Ofer Tziperman, a wicked chap, this week and he demonstrated the technology to me. It’s very smart. They’re able to give the end user free access to the service (obviously, data charges apply if you’re stupid enough to still be with an operator busy hosing you for data fees) by adopting an ad-funded approach. Income is generated via advertisements (i.e. cash machines displayed on the map) as well as sponsorship of the service.
LocatioNet are no flash in the pan. They’ve been around for over 16 years and they know exactly what they’re doing. For example, the amAze application doesn’t do much calculation. No. That would take a load of handset resources and is thoroughly inefficient. Instead, when you need a route calculated, the details are fired off to the amAze server that does the computing and within a second, the results are fired back to the handset. Very smart indeed.
This would be a great application for the likes of Shell, Texaco, BP or somebody to give to their customers.
Get yourself a free copy of amAze at www.amazegps.com. I’ve got more to post, including a particularly wicked example of how a 14 year old using amAze on his bike beat Denmark’s most experienced GPS navigation expert armed to the teeth with oodles of standard Garmin GPS technology. Heh, excellent.
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Kcjh on 
Pingback by Nseries WOM World » Blog Archive » New mapping app for your N95 on 20 July 2007:
[...] Jump over to his blog to read more about it, get the download and give it a go, let us and Ewan know what you think, does it beat the Nokia Maps application? [...]
Comment by Matt jnes on 20 July 2007:
I tried this about 2 months ago and abolutely hated it. It was slow, buggy, kept asking for permission for use positioning data and streaming maps in a 2G area is nigh-on impossible. After I got incredibly fed up with it, I tried to uninstall the app but it remained in my menu until I re-installed the N95 firmware with no backup.
Maybe they’ve improved the app a bit, but out of Nokia Maps (with paid navigation) and amAze, I’ll take Nokia Maps every single time.
Comment by geoffg on 21 July 2007:
DON’T WASTE YOUR TIME WITH THIS APP, FOLKS!
Very surprised at your recommendation of this. This does not appear to be a company with and interest or ability to provide bug-free software.
Even their download page is buggy.
On my N95 it is very reluctant to access
the data network, and keeps coming up with “Comms error”, even though I’ve set it up correctly.
Eeven the design of the app is rubbish, for the UK at least - it refuses to do a search based on a postcode alone, and insists on having a street name as well. Could you imagine a worse way to write a search facility?
I feel that you’ve wasted my time in riasing my interest in this product sufficiently to make me struggle with its faults and try to get some use out of it.
In its present state it’s literally useless to me.
Pingback by amAze - the UK’s first free voice-guided navigation solution? on 21 July 2007:
[...] (via SMS Text News) [...]
Comment by Frankieb123 on 22 July 2007:
I have been using AmazeGPS for over 2 months now and find it an excellent piece of software. I live in Scotland and used it to navigate to England without any problems. As soon as the route is loaded that’s it no more cost and the directions given were excellent. With my phone mounted on the dash I could easily see the directions and using my bluetooth headset was guided by the computer voice. The way I see it is you can spend a fortune on SatNavs but why bother when this one is free. Sure there is a small cost when you plan a route but I’ve got free internet use with my phone package so I am saving money. If you need a fancy Satnav spend a fortune, if you want to get from A to B without spending a penny get AmazeGPS it will get you where you want to go. AMAZING
Comment by James on 23 July 2007:
Well, don’t know about you guys, but it works very well for me. Fast and easy to download, no problems to activate it with the internal GPS (I assume they have improved it since two months ago…).
For a completely free app, it is doing a great job and saves me the need to buy the Nokia expensive solution.
Well done for a great job guys! Keep up the good work and don’t let cynical comments discourage you… J
Comment by geoffg on 26 July 2007:
This app is now working on my N95 - the comms errors sorted themselves out eventually.
Hwoever, there’s no getting round the fact that the search that I suspect most people in the UK do most often - that is using the postcode only, isn’t allowed by this software! (it insists that you enter the street name as well, which is completely pointless).
When I tried to report this on their forum, it insisted I register again, although I had already registered to receive the software, and then despite repeated attempts on my part it never sent me the validation email. So I couldn’t even report the fault because their forum seems broke too!
Yes this software is innovative, but it is let down by poor design, and a significant lack of atttention to detail.
If Amaze improve in this respect, then they may have a useable product.
Personally I much prefer Nokia Maps, and at £45 for a 3 year license - it’s a no-brainer to me that it’s worth £15 a year!
Comment by Ville Witt on 29 July 2007:
Geoffg stop flame - those kinds of attacks never help anybody…
About them missing stuff - I guess they are still developing… Eventually, you could send them a email, that is if the standard email apps works on your setup.
Sadly, the amAze is not available for the Symbian UIQ series as of my knowledge, so I can’t test it.
VW