Nokia’s Here Maps, which power maps on Windows Phones, has released a beta version for Samsung Galaxy Android phones. It’s not available through Google Play, though presumably it will be in time. Nokia’s hardware/handset division was sold to Microsoft but Nokia retained the Here mapping service. Now Microsoft is going to phase out the Nokia brand […]
Microsoft’s new predictive search agent Cortana is finally becoming available to the general public. How does it compare to longstanding champion Google Now? After months of using them both, it’s no contest. Google Now easily wins, in my daily life. But Cortana does gives Microsoft an important foundation in the predictive search space and puts […]
According to a story appearing in The Verge yesterday, Microsoft is not allowing users to set Google as the default search engine for mobile web browsing on new Lumia 8.1 devices (630 and 930). As the article points out, the search button on the handset uses Bing and cannot be switched. I reached out to […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the Web. From Search Engine Land: Google Maps To Get A Major Design Overhaul Alex Chitu reports Google is testing a new Google Maps interface, possibly to be launched next week at Google I/O. The new interface […]
On Friday, Windows Phone users supposedly found themselves unable to access Google Maps. But Google said it made no sudden change on its end to cause this. What happened? It seems likely many people simple noticed for the first time long-standing redirection that Google had in place for those not using Android or iOS devices. Windows Phone […]
One of the persistent criticisms of Windows tablets and Windows Phones is that they just don’t have the app selection of Android or iOS. Microsoft says however that Windows Phones currently have access to 120,000 apps. Nokia adds,”Of the top 50 apps available for iPhone and Android, 46 of them are available” on the Windows […]
Got the new Google Search app on your iPhone or iPad? Here’s a trick. Ask it, “What’s the best smartphone?” The app will politely decline to say. The app will reply in one of two ways that I’ve found: “No one phone is right for everyone.” “You’ll have to decide for yourself.” Don’t have the […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: iAcquire Banned From Google After Link Buying Allegations The search marketing agency, iAcquire, that was allegedly responsible for buying links for clients was just banned from Google’s search results. iAcquire was […]
Slowly Bing is handing over more of its mapping “back end” functions to Nokia, as part of the deal that brought the two together for the Lumia-Windows Phone partnership. Yesterday Microsoft announced that in 24 countries, including the US and UK, Nokia (Navteq) will be delivering traffic data to Bing Maps. The company also said […]
It wasn’t Siri that was recommending the Lumia as the best smartphone to some last week; it was Wolfram Alpha. That won’t happen again, now that Wolfram Alpha has made changes to to fix problems it had dealing with customer reviews. Reviews Weren’t Weighted To Account For Number When I looked into the Siri-Lumia issue last […]
In May of last year I had a conversation with someone who told me that Nokia Maps (Navteq) would effectively replace the infrastructure behind Bing Maps. I was surprised to say the least and wrote about it in a story entitled Bing Maps To Be Powered (Replaced) By Nokia? The impression I got is that […]