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If you have found a beautiful Nokia Lumia with Windows Phone 8 under the Christmas tree, you might wonder how to make the most out of it. We created a handy overview to guide you through all the features currently available for Nokia Maps, Nokia Drive, Nokia Transport and Nokia City Lens and to answer all the frequently asked questions.

What are these apps all about?

Nokia Maps has been designed to help you find places anywhere, get reviews, photos (you can contribute too) and then plan a route to get there.

Nokia Drive is for all of you who frequently use a car, to commute or travel. It has a unique user interface developed for in-car and arm-length use. The last update includes battery life improvements.

Nokia Transport is for commuters on buses and trains who want to know the best time to leave the office or partygoers who want a one-tap access to the next bus home.

Last but not least, Nokia City Lens is the next step in augmented reality apps: it helps you find the best places around you through the camera viewfinder.

Why separate apps?

Some of you are wondering why we are developing separate location based apps. In our user tests we realized that people want an easy and fast way to solve their every day needs like walking, driving or riding the bus. With our apps and the power of Windows Phone you can for instance easily pin to start the destinations you go to more often or the apps that really matter to you. Also, we can develop much faster new features if we keep some apps separate.

Nokia Lumia 920 and Lumia 820

Our first Windows Phone 8 smartphones.

Be a part of it.

How to switch from app to app?

Even if most of the time you will use our apps to “drive home” (Nokia Drive) or “ride the bus to work” (Nokia Transport) or “find nearby restaurants” (Nokia City Lens), there are also cases when you start using one app but you need another one to support.

For instance, if you are looking for a vintage shoe shop, you open Nokia Maps to find it, you calculate the route to get there but it’s a bit far away to go on foot. No problems, Nokia Maps can also tell you how to get there by car or public transport and lets you seamlessly start either Nokia Drive or Nokia Transport to get voice-guided car navigation or bus and trains schedules. Easy.

Where is traffic information?

While we are still polishing Nokia Drive to introduce My Commute also on Windows Phone 8, you can see traffic alerts and incidents on Nokia Maps by activating the corresponding map style. In the latest Nokia Maps release we have also particularly improved the display of such information, make sure you have the latest version! (v 3.1).

How do I get spoken street names?

When you first start Nokia Drive, you will be asked to download street maps for offline use and also voice guidance. You can select among over 50 languages, sometimes also different regionalisms or male/female voices. For a crystal clear voice-guided navigation, we have asked professionals to record their voices for you. If you prefer to hear “in 300m turn left into Oxford Street”, you can also select a voice with spoken street names. Make sure you select this option if this feature is very important to you – in this case a computer voice will guide you during your journey.

Where is Nokia Transport available?

Nokia Transport is available for 550+ cities in 50+ countries around the world. In 105 cities you can also get timetable information either according to the available schedule or to real time situation. We are closely working with different transport agencies to collect accurate information, the quality of which exceeds the standard provided by other solutions.

Additionally, we are continuously extending our coverage: just recently we added many cities in Russia.

Where are street maps available?

We have maps data for nearly 200 countries and navigation for around 100 countries. Of course we continue expanding our coverage, in fact, Serbia and Israel, which many of you were waiting for, are now in our database too. To benefit from coverage updates, make sure you are connected to Wi-Fi then go to settings > applications > maps > check for updates.

What can I pin to start?

One of the most interesting features of Windows Phone is the possibility to pin apps and features to the start screen, creating a truly personal experience. Our location-based apps are no exception and let you pin to start places, categories, routes and destinations for one-tap access to what you need.

Which of these apps do you use the most? Let us know in the comments section below or send a Tweet to @heremaps.

The future is in your hands

By now you should have read what’s happened in the past and what’s happening right now in the world of Nokia Connects, but what does the future hold? Well, that’s really up to you guys. We’re putting the future of Nokia Connects in your hands (kind of). Tell us what you’d like to see, and we’ll try our Christmas socks off to make it happen.

Competitions

Having seen the way you guys embraced competitions like the Nokia Cardboard Challenge, the #NokiaLVK mood board contest and the current Nokia Paper Challenge it seems that the creative among you are on board with this type of contest. But what about those who are more thumbs than fingers? What would you like to see in the way of competitions next year? Photography assignments? A round the world SMS relay challenge? We’re open to (reasonable) suggestions!

Events

What would you like to see from a Nokia Connects event? Where would it be? Would I finally get to meet CJ (and so many more of you guys) face to face? If the timing, location, event plan, guest list (this means I am on it) are right, we could be headed your way! Let us know what kind of events we could get involved in, and we’ll talk. This past few years we’ve ridden horses in Calgary, rocked out to Deadmau5 in London (TWICE!), and of course met lots of new friends at Social Media Week events around the world. What’s next?

Trials

You guys are special. You do special things with special pieces of technology. Some of you go all out and amaze us every day with your pictures, your crazy ideas, and special places that you have taken the phones. We want more of this next year. Lots more. All ideas are welcome, the more out there the better (all in good taste and within reason, of course). Is there an event you’d enjoy so much more with the latest Nokia in your hands? Something you’ve always wanted to discover, but couldn’t previously, or a series of photographs that you have in mind? Leave your ideas when you fill out the Trial a Nokia form and let us know.

So that’s what the future holds for Nokia Connects, and as you can see it’s up to you to create some truly memorable contests, events and trials. We’re open to suggestions, so get thinking. Have a very Happy New Year, and see you in 2013!

There’s little chance that you wouldn’t recognise one of Nokia Music’s greatest evangelists on a trip to Nokia House. Just look out for the man with the rockabilly hairstyle; not one, but two pairs of Purity by Monster headphones round his neck, and the strong likelihood of a JBL wireless-charging speaker in his hands.

Dean Pattrick’s Start screen says as much about his interests as his accessories do, of course. We’re loving the way you can tell so much about a person from their screen.

So Dean, tell us the apps you’ve prioritised and why?

Nokia Music: You can tell from the screen that MUSIC features heavily – Nokia Music client, dance mix & Green Day playlists offline cached to the devices, Taylor Swift that was an NFC playlist from a Music poster and finally the Swedish House Mafia gig that takes place on the 20^th Dec.

This is not just for demo-ing but also using “living the dream” and listening to Nokia Music at every possible time, whether I am commuting, in-between meetings, ironing, the list goes on. 

People Hub: The essential way to interact with your friends, family and the great people I work with.

Sports Tracker: The best way to track your sporting activities. Before you ask yes I do listen to music when I work out J

Accuweather: For checking when to go running and biking… I’m not too fond of cycling to work in the pouring rain…

Connectivity Shortcuts: I cannot live without the quick links to WiFi and Bluetooth

What apps do you use to pass the time?

Apart from Nokia Music it has to be NETFLIX. A superb app for watching films, tv programs, cartoons. Although a premium service (8€ per month) I can watch on the Lumia, PC, Xbox, PS3 and the TV. 

What is the last app you paid for, and what does it do?

NFC Interactor although it is not on my main screen this is a great tool for programming NFC tags.

Which app(s) is your guilty pleasure?

Formula 1. If you like F1, then you cannot live without this app, it has everything in (almost) real time. Count down timer for the practice, qualifier and the race; track view; updated race results etc etc. It really is a one stop shop for F1.

I love the whole process of taking something new out of the box and turning it on for the first time. It’s like a little bit of magic where you are bringing something to life.

Mobile devices are particularly rewarding because they need to be set up with your email addresses, contacts and social networks. Then they can be customised with apps and games to the nth degree.

However, you’re still not quite finished with it. You will also need some accessories. Even if you don’t need them, you will almost certainly want them. 

Only a true gadget enthusiast will understand that it’s not just necessary to get your primary device but it’s also highly desirable to get all the paraphernalia that goes with it.

It’s not just buying for consumption’s sake either – the gear produced by Nokia often extends the functionality of your smartphone or mobile device.

Let’s look back at some of the standout accessories that have been produced by Nokia in 2012.

Rather than sticking to a rigid chronological format, I’ve divided this post into several categories. Let’s start with some goodies for the Nokia Lumia 920 and Lumia 820.

Look, no wires

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Among the many great features on the Nokia Lumia 920 and Lumia 820 smartphones is the ability to charge up your device without the need for any wires. 

The Lumia 920 is equipped to do this straight out of the box and there are several accessories for you to choose from.

My personal favourite is the Nokia Wireless Charging Pillow by Fatboy but you also have the Wireless Charging Plate and the Wireless Charging Stand to choose from.

The Lumia 820 requires the help of a wireless charging shell before you can use any of the accessories above. However, if wireless charging isn’t important to you then another option is a rugged shell that gives your Lumia 820 extra protection.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

All about audio

As well as making phone calls, taking pictures and everything else, your Nokia smartphone is also pretty handy for playing music.

Nicely straddling the audio and wireless charging divide is the JBL PowerUp Wireless Charging Speaker. This audio colossus can wirelessly charge up your Lumia 920 or Lumia 820 while connecting by NFC or Bluetooth to play the music on your smartphone.

Another accessory born from the partnership between JBL and Nokia is the JBL PlayUp Portable Wireless Speaker. Again, it plays the music from your Lumia smartphone using either a Bluetooth or NFC connection. Older phones are not left out either; they can use the standard 3.5mm jack.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

What is particularly wonderful about these accessories, and indeed most of the products featured here, is that they share a common design language and colour approach.

They are different shapes and sizes but still complement each other effortlessly.

On your head

You could definitely say that about the Nokia Purity Pro Wireless Stereo Headset by Monster.

These gorgeous and striking headphones connect wirelessly to your phone, feature active noise cancellation and when you’re done with them, they can be folded away for easy storage – the folding action also doubles up as a on/off switch to save battery life. 

If you want to try something a bit subtler, then the Nokia Purity WH-920 Headset by Monster might be what you have in mind. These premium in-ear headphones provide an outstanding listening experience with a remote control for hands-free convenience.

Unveiled back in March at Barcelona was the Nokia Bluetooth Headset BH-221 (pictured at the top of this post). It’s a headset with a difference, because it has a built-in FM radio which means you won’t have to drain power from your phone to listen to your favourite show.

Plus, the built-in OLED display shows you exactly what station you’re currently tuned to, who’s calling you and the battery status. It connects simply to your phone using NFC.

Another audio accessory worth a mention is the Nokia Luna Bluetooth Headset with Wireless Charging. This is a great option for taking hands-free calls and is perhaps the most beautiful accessory of the year? It comes with a cute ‘dock’ that charges the headset – wirelessly, of course.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

My final standout accessory of 2012 doesn’t play music and has no NFC or Bluetooth options. All the same, I think everyone would agree that the Nokia DC-16 is an extremely useful gadget to have around.

Think of it as a portable 2200mAh battery to charge up your phone on the go. It’ll work with any gadget that uses USB charging, comes in Nokia-esque colours and after 3 months on standby will still be holding 75% of its charge.

I can’t wait to see what 2013 will have in store for us. 

Od jutra do 03.01.2013 w sklepie internetowym trwać będzie wielka wyprzedaż końcówek serii! Przecena obowiązywać będzie w taryfach: Stan Darmowy, All Inclusive, All Inclusive MAX oraz FORMUA 4.0 dla nowych abonentów, przedłużających umowę i w super przejściu do Play. BlackBerry Curve 9380 HTC One S HTC One X LG P940 Prada 3.0 by LG Motorola [...]

Od jutra do 03.01.2013 w sklepie internetowym trwać będzie wielka wyprzedaż końcówek serii! Przecena obowiązywać będzie w taryfach: Stan Darmowy, All Inclusive, All Inclusive MAX oraz FORMUA 4.0 dla nowych abonentów, przedłużających umowę i w super przejściu do Play. BlackBerry Curve 9380 HTC One S HTC One X LG P940 Prada 3.0 by LG Motorola [...]

Harri last appeared on Nokia Conversations back in September. He’s an ex-professional snowboarder and now one of our Product Marketing Managers involved with the Nokia x Burton activities, among other things.

But enough about his work. Let’s answer the important question: what’s on his Start screen?

Like everyone else, Harri’s Start screen is a mixture of what he needs for work and personal choices that reflect his personality. “It’s a mix of business and pleasure apps such as calendar, email, photos and social stuff. That mix looks good on my start screen and gives you the info you need at a glance. “

A Twitter fanatic and a Facebook fan, social media apps play a big part in Harri’s use of the phone, but when he’s travelling and offline, it’s other apps that come to the fore: “When I’m traveling and don’t have Internet access I love to play with Nokia and third-party image editing apps like Smart Shoot, Cinemagraph, Photo Grid, Creative Studio and Lomogram.”

We asked Harri about the guilty pleasures hidden among his Tiles. He admits: “MMA Underground – keeps you up to speed what’s happening in the world of mixed martial arts.”

Well, even if you think that’s a silly choice, not many people would have the guts to say it to his face…

Although they were first unveiled in October 2011, Nokia’s Asha range of mobile phones truly came of age in 2012.

Throughout the year, new Nokia Asha models were released and they were quick to find a loyal and devoted following, as illustrated in an ambitious, globetrotting video series called ‘Me & My Asha.’

As another example of the progress that was made in 2012, global market research companies and analysts such as GfK designated Asha Touch devices as full smartphones. 

As a new year approaches, we look back on the last 12 months in the Asha family, revisit the new models that were introduced and remind you of some of the stories we published.

Making a splash in Barcelona

The first new Asha models of 2012 were launched in February at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

The Nokia Asha 302 was a premium QWERTY phone for young professionals who need to communicate for business, and love to stay in touch with family and friends.

The Nokia Asha 203, and its dual-SIM variant, the Nokia Asha 202 both featured alphanumeric keypads – and touchscreens! They were also the phones that introduced the EA Games partnership that would prove to be another Asha highlight in 2012.

This is how we reported on the launch of these new Asha mobile phones.

A touch of inspiration

The summer saw the debut of the Asha Touch range, namely the Nokia Asha 305, Asha 306 and Asha 311.

They were affordable touch screen smartphones with a quick and responsive user interface, cloud-accelerated Internet browser, with easy access to social networks, that were great for mobile gaming and included essential tools such as Nokia Maps.

One month after the Asha Touch smartphones were launched, Conversations spoke to Saulo Passos, Nokia’s communications director for mobile phones, about how they were helping to connect the next billion people and get them online to a smarter Internet. 

Apps for Asha

I am a proud owner of a Nokia Asha 311 and this is how I looked back on my first week with the device.

As with any new gadget, the longer you spend with it, the more rewarding it becomes. As I kept on discovering new apps in the Nokia Store, this was certainly the case with my Asha 311.

In the last few months I’ve looked at location tools, Nokia Internet Radio and as well as my personal selection of essential apps, I also rounded up apps in areas as diverse as education, sports, art, travel and photo editing.

Additions to the Touch family

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

The final quarter of 2012 saw two new members of the Asha Touch family, the Asha 308 and Asha 309.

These two smartphones also heralded the introduction of Nokia’s new Xpress Browser, which uses cloud compression technology to make surfing the web faster whilst consuming up to 90 per cent less data. 

This underlined that being connected and offering a smarter and better value Internet experience lay at the heart of all Asha Touch devices.

Asha is one… And one more

In October Nokia Asha celebrated its first birthday and appropriately enough for  such an event, we looked in detail at Asha’s terrific gaming credentials. 

However, even then Asha wasn’t over for the year. The final model to be released was the Nokia Asha 205 in late November.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

With its QWERTY keyboard, striking two-tone colour combinations, SLAM sharing technology and a dedicated Facebook button – the first ever for a Nokia device – it was the most social Asha of the lot.

Not a bad way to end the year then. Somehow, I get the feeling that 2013 is going to be just as much fun.

Nikki Barton is VP Smart Devices User Experience Design. In other words, a lot of what people love about using their Nokia Lumias is Nikki’s responsibility.

Needless to say, her Start screen shows a lot of attention to detail. Here’s how she has it arranged, in her own words:

I’m using a Nokia Lumia 920, which has a big, beautiful high-resolution screen.

I use it to plan my work AND home life, and you can see that in the apps I’ve prioritised and put at the top of the screen. I’ve got 19 there without scrolling, and the way I’ve organised them and the colour coding makes it easy to recognise them instantly.

First of all I’ve chosen the lovely steel theme, which combined with the white gloss of the industrial design gives a sophistication to the whole experience. I often see people looking at it over my shoulder on the Tube.

The Phone tile is at the top of the screen and it’s large as I use it often every day. I can quickly use the history tab within it to recall numbers I use regularly and also the search tab, which gives me quick access to all my contacts and also the company telephone directory.

Next I have a set of smaller tiles representing my text messages, home and work emails, then browser and store.

I’ve been using Cinemagraph for taking rather magical moving photos of my daughter: it really brings the pictures alive.

The other app I use on an almost daily basis (when I’m not cycling) is Transport. This gives me up-to-the-minute travel and route information that lets me get across London quickly without me having to think too much.

My calendar, which is a bigger tile, combines my work and my home calendars together. It really has made a difference to my home life, as my partner and I have managed to get our calendars syncing using family room across multiple devices and platforms for the first time!

Next to that is a large Photos tile, with family and friends photographs making my day more pleasant by displaying a selection of them throughout the day.

Then at the bottom of the screen I have two small rows of tiles that include; Onenote (which I’m using now to write this), Nokia Music (I use Mix Radio most days in the evening), the Guardian newspaper, LinkedIn and Facebook (which I also access information from through the Me tile above), Radio 4 streaming (I listen to this station in the morning), Ocado (grocery delivery) and LOVEFiLM (where I line up films to watch and rent).

If I scroll down the screen I have a lot more, including pinned groups of my work teams – so I can see the faces of people in my teams – useful when you’ve got a large network spread across the world!

Harri last appeared on Nokia Conversations back in September. He’s an ex-professional snowboarder and now one of our Product Marketing Managers involved with the Nokia x Burton activities, among other things.

But enough about his work. Let’s answer the important question: what’s on his Start screen?

Like everyone else, Harri’s Start screen is a mixture of what he needs for work and personal choices that reflect his personality. “It’s a mix of business and pleasure apps such as calendar, email, photos and social stuff. That mix looks good on my start screen and gives you the info you need at a glance. “

A Twitter fanatic and a Facebook fan, social media apps play a big part in Harri’s use of the phone, but when he’s travelling and offline, it’s other apps that come to the fore: “When I’m traveling and don’t have Internet access I love to play with Nokia and third-party image editing apps like Smart Shoot, Cinemagraph, Photo Grid, Creative Studio and Lomogram.”

We asked Harri about the guilty pleasures hidden among his Tiles. He admits: “MMA Underground – keeps you up to speed what’s happening in the world of mixed martial arts.”

Well, even if you think that’s a silly choice, not many people would have the guts to say it to his face…