Nokia Capitalizes On Apple Maps Fiasco: 'Here's Why Our Maps Are Better'

By Alexandra Burlacu | Sep 23, 2012 12:52 PM EDT

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Nokia may be trailing behind its competitors, but it seems to be wasting no time when it sees an opportunity. Amid Apple's map fiasco revolving around its Apple Maps, which replaced Google Maps in iOS 6, Nokia found the perfect time to boast about its own maps and tout the location services it offers in its own Windows 8 smartphones.

Complaints about Apple's map app started surfacing on Thursday, Sept. 20, and the media had a field day noting various omissions and mistakes in the program. Apple's application not only has less detail than the Google Maps app it replaced, but it also features misidentified cities, the absence of Shakespeare's home town, wrongly located towns, and duplicated islands such as Senkaku and Diayu, islands that have notoriously been the source of a dispute between China and Japan. Moreover, an Irish government official even warned that Apple's map app was "dangerous," as it labeled a 35-acre farm as an airport in one of its cartographic renderings.

Nokia seized the opportunity and published a not-so-subtle blog post on its site, touting the value of its mapping applications.

"Unlike our competitors, which are financing their location assets with advertising or licensing mapping content from third parties, we completely own, build and distribute mapping content, platform and apps," boasted Nokia. "In other words, we truly understand that maps and location-based apps must be accurate, provide the best quality and be accessible basically anywhere. That's been standard practice at Nokia for the past six years, and we also understand that 'pretty' isn't enough."

To give credit where it's due, Nokia's jabs may in fact be more than just gloating. Nokia has been a leader in the mapping business for a long time, offering its services for in-car units and other mapping devices. The company's maps power Yahoo's offering as well, and will also service Windows Phone 8's mapping.

To further emphasize its superiority, Nokia threw in a comparison between the mapping services coming to its Lumia 920 Windows Phone 8 smartphone and the services offered on the Samsung Galaxy S3 and iPhone 5. As expected, the Finnish company claims to be superior in most, if not all, categories. Topping the comparison chart is the fact that Nokia offers turn-by-turn navigation in 110 countries, while the iPhone offers the same feature for just 56 countries. Moreover, Nokia's map app also works offline, a feature the Galaxy S3 and iPhone 5 lack.

On the other hand, Nokia is still trailing far behind its competitors, maps or not. Apple is expected to sell as many as 10 million iPhone 5 units this weekend alone, while Nokia has seen its shares drop. The company has put its hopes in its new Lumia 920 Windows 8 flagship, but has hit a rough spot at the unveiling when it presented a video demonstrating the Lumia 920's PureView camera capabilities, although the material was not shot with the smartphone's camera. Nokia has since apologized and explained its mishap, and now seems to be working on drawing attention to its strengths for once.