Tip: Search on Google Maps Then Navigate on Nokia Maps

September 14th, 2008 • Mark Guim • Filed Under •

I get frustrated whenever Nokia Maps cannot find places I search for. I end up opening Google Maps instead which finds them every time, but it doesn’t have turn-by-turn voice navigation that I want from Nokia Maps. I’m glad that the two apps share bookmarks or favorite places to fix that problem.

Whatever location or address that is bookmarked or saved on Google Maps is accessible to Nokia Maps and vice versa. Since Google is much better with searching, I recommend searching for the place you want to go using Google Maps, save the location as a favorite, then open up Nokia Maps to handle the navigation.

Nokia Maps and Google Maps Shared Favorites

I am going to search for the location of a place called B and H Photos in New York City. My query is “BH photo.” Google finds it immediately while Nokia Maps does not find it al all.

Google Maps BH photo Nokia Maps bh Photo

Save it as a favorite in Google Maps.

Save Favorite bh Photo

Open Nokia Maps and go to Favorites – My Places. Select Drive to to go on your merry way!

Nokia Maps bh fav Drive to

Without Google Maps, I would have been really frustrated, quit, then called Nokia Maps crap. However, I love the voice navigation. It helped me get to many places safely. What about you? Is this how you use your GPS enabled phone?

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  • ashu
    i do not use this way but THIS Is the way to go!!!!I live in India where Nokia Maps Sucks but Google Maps are cool enough. Now I know why shoud I buy my navigation licence from Nokia!!!
  • Nokia Maps never finds locations in my city.

    I have a Nokia e90 and a N95 and I use them everyday for work and personal calls and I had to buy a TomTom because Nokia maps is absolutely useless...
  • .. a little off topic...
    I have TomTom on my N95-8 (because i purchased it for my E65) and must say I cannot recommend it. It crashes when you rotate the screen and it does not work with the built in GPS (needs an external one). I used to live in the UK and TomTom worked absolutely fine there. But when I travelled abroad it did not find half the streets and it was not possible to do a Post Code search for example in Germany (is this the usual TomTom quality or was it a special UK edition? - at least it said Europe on the box).

    To the point. At least in Germany the Nokia Maps worked great and they seemed to have known important business in Munich. But thanks a lot for the tip with saving business as favorites to Google Maps and then using Nokia Maps to get directions. sounds great!!!!
  • Viipottaja
    Great tip, had not thought of that. It's, btw, amazing how crap the Nokia Maps search box really is.. its almost mind boggling how it can fail to find what you are looking for with such almost perfect record (i.e. close to 100% failure rate :D)
  • Phite
    I never use the search box - I'm not sure if that searches through the favourites/bookmarks only. The search from the menu has worked for me, atleast in Toronto and in New York.
  • Nokia should partner with google. In South America there are maps for a couple of cities and very basic. Google maps are way out much better and the app is faster.
  • By the way...
    Does anybody knows a good app to use with the internal GPS of Nokia phones?
    Wich do you prefer? Garmin? Route 66? others?

    (Mark, this may be a good work for you to post here)
  • Mark,
    This is awesome! I'm driving around Washington Sate today, and I just Favorited some spots in Google Maps. Now I might be able to find them!
  • glad i've helped! Nokia maps certainly became much more useful after this guide.
  • ashu
    but then tell me, if i favourite a place in google, and try to navigate thru nokia maps, what about the accuracy of navigation? They sometimes have given me wrong roads to follow even when i know which way to go!!!
    This is still passable in the city i reside, what about unknown places.
  • Ravi
    This is good but how do you use or access Google Map in Nokia N96.
  • Great post... I just got an N95 and was mad at how crappy the search is. This makes it worth getting the voice nav.
  • Andrew
    hi there, does someone know why when I open Google 's favourite in Nokia Maps the road is different than saved as Google's favourite? There is different end point so different milage etc.
    Did someone have this problem?
    Thanks for help
  • michael
    Hmmm, this does not work on my phone. Nokia 6210 navigator with google maps 2.3.2 and nokia maps v2.
  • Fran Wilkins
    I've done it this way all along.
    Nokia Maps is crap & vague when it comes to finding anything.
    Google finds it straight away.

    So at least I can find it on Google then follow the "street directory" Nokia Map to wherever.
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