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Here to pull its maps and navigation apps for Windows Phone

By Ng Chong Seng - on 16 Mar 2016, 11:07am

Here to pull its maps and navigation apps for Windows Phone

 

Here Maps is one of the good reasons to use Windows Phone in the past. But now, Here (the company) has announced that it’ll be dropping support for Windows Phone and Windows 10.

To be more specific, Here-branded apps (e.g., Here Maps, Here Drive+, Here Transit, Here City Lens) will be removed from the Windows 10 Store on March 29, 2016. If you’ve a Windows 10 phone like the Lumia 950, Here apps will no longer work after June 30. According to Here, while it has just made its apps compatible with Windows 10 a few months back, that involved a “workaround” that won’t work past June 30. So instead of redeveloping the apps “from the ground up”, it has decided to pull the apps instead. (It’s more likely that Here doesn’t see the economic reason to waste money on the dying Windows Phone platform.)

Here apps will still work on Windows Phone 8, however, but the company is limiting their development to just critical bug fixes. Maps developed for Windows Phone will also not be updated.

For maps, routes, and navigation, Here recommends that users turn to Microsoft’s Windows Maps moving forward. Currently, Windows Maps uses several Here elements as Microsoft is a licensee of the Here platform. However, the 4-year license is supposed to end in 2017, and there’s no word yet on what’s going to happen after that. Considering that a new Windows Maps app based on the Universal Windows Platform is currently under development, it’s perhaps safe to assume that this deal will be renewed.

For those wondering, Here used to be owned by Nokia. When Microsoft bought Nokia’s devices and services business in 2013, the deal didn’t include buying over the Here mapping business. Last August, Nokia sold that business, and Here is now a company co-owned by German automotive companies Audi, BMW, and Daimler.

Source: Here.

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