December 18, 2006

Google Maps on Nokia N80 running T-mobile... sweet!

OK, I'm a bit confused... now that I'm up and running on an all you can eat data plan via T-Mobile using my spanky Nokia N80 smartphone (no its not a T-Mobile device.. sorry!) I decided that I have to have Google Maps mobile running on it. So, I point my WAP browser to google.com/gmm and download away... the service recognizes that I'm using an N80 and installs sans problem. Everything works just fine... actually, its totally sweet! I pan around Fort Collins (too bad there's no detailed satellite imagery for this area (rather odd since DigitalGlobe is just down the road!) locate my house, the kids school, etc... what strikes me odd though is that when I visit the gmaps mobile support page thge documentation reads that the service is not supported by T-Mobile... huh? I have to assume that this service won't work on a T-Mobile supplied (locked) device... obviously I got around this by using my own device. There is one trade-off though by having an unlocked device and that's that T-mobile specific services (like the new my faves plan) is not supported.. oh well, the family plan + all you can eat data is just fine... another luxury I'm enjoying by living south of the 49th... ya I'm really going to miss those $200 Rogers wireless phone bills I used to get simply by using a couple of megs of data services with a few roaming calls tossed in. A last request.. hey imagery providers... how about some detailed satellite imagery for Fort Collins, particularly since it is a geospatial hotbed - and new home of GISuser ;0)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You're right about Google Maps (and other third-party Java apps for that matter) not working on T-Mobile devices. T-Mobile cripples the firmware to prevent Java apps from obtaining network access. There are workarounds with some devices, but for a lot of devices the only way around it is to have them flashed with unbranded firmware.