Introducing Nokia Map Loader for Mac
Mon, 2008-10-20 17:09Guest writer: Steve A, the product manager of Map Loader for Mac
Hello
I am pleased to announce the beta-release of Map Loader for Mac 1.0. It allows you to load Maps to your device via your Mac, rather than over the air. Particularly useful if you are planning on travelling to a new area you are unfamiliar with. Save on that phone bill.
Background
We get a lot of feedback through the existing application, Nokia Multimedia Transfer, for all sorts of features and one of the requested items has been a Map Loader for the Mac. So we have worked away to bring out version 1.0. In terms of functionality it is similar to the Map Loader for PC 1.0 but with a definite Mac look and feel. We also wanted to give our Mac users, something extra, so we have added one feature we are hope you will find useful, a history feature.
Compatibility
You will need a device that can run Nokia Maps. See maps.nokia.com for more information. You can also check the compatibility list for Map Loader for Mac. You will also need to install Nokia Multimedia Transfer if you haven't already www.nokia.com/mac/multimediatr
Getting started
Firstly make sure you have a memory card installed in your device, unless it is a product like N95-8GB with built in memory. Run the Maps application on your device. Once you have done this, you can connect your device to your internet connected Mac using your USB cable. If you are using Nokia Multimedia Transfer to transfer music etc, it is best to wait for this to finish transferring. Then launch Map Loader for Mac. You can then drag and drop various maps elements such as countries to your device. And the history feature? Well not groundbreaking, but it lets you see what you have transferred, and you can use it to reload the same set of maps as a later date.
Giving feedback
You can send feedback via the application itself, or Nokia Multimedia Transfer, or add a comment to this blog post. We look forward to hearing what you think. Ideas may not make the final 1.0 version, but could appear in a future update. Also fairly soon we will have an update to Nokia Multimedia Transfer which should improve the performance of the Nokia Map Loader for Mac.
One more thing...
I am sure there is another Steve who uses that phrase. Please keep all the Mac feedback coming. We do listen and hope to offer more solutions in the future
Enjoy - Steve and all who have contributed in the development of this product.
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Comments
Hi all
Sorry for my absence, but I took a well needed break for a few days. Again continued thanks to the feedback either via the blog or directly via the application.
I can't answer individual phone problems. But we will be following up with the Map guys to see if and how we can improved this.
On connectivity. We use Nokia Multimedia Transfer as it provides the connectivity between the Mac and the device. On the topic of USB most Nokia devices only support USB-Full Speed, rather than USB Hi-Speed which was specified with USB 2.0. Incidently having USB 2.0 does necessarily mean you get the Hi-Speed. The good news is that newer Nokia devices are now coming with USB Hi-Speed.
To Ilgaz and Sergey Zak. Firstly I appreciate Mac users come in all flavours, from very non technical, to far more techie than myself. Our stats come directly from NMT usage. For us there are very positive quality benefits in sticking to Leopard. Back porting to Tiger is not impossible, but nor is it trivial. But never say never.
To "A" good point about the History Show button. We will change this slightly so it doesn't disappear. Sorting on table headers isn't a feature. It would be quite do-able, but what would the benefits be?
Regards Steve
Thanks for the update Steve A :)
It works for me now after reinstalling Nokia Maps on my N82 (whereas I alreay had the latest version...).
Have to agree with a few of the above. It would not take much to make a Linux version.
Please? :D:D
Great! Although I have really been waiting SW firmware updater to Mac. Good that you are working on it though! And one more thing...: Why don't you start using Qt for all the desktop sw (Nokia owns it now!) so it would be cross platform and you would more easily get Mac, Win, Linux support...)?
I have tried Map Loader for Mac 1.0. on my Mac running 10.5.5 and connected to my N95-1 V30.0.015 with Nokia Maps 2.0 but it will not work!
I get a message saying "The phone does not seem to work with Nokia MapLoader"
This is somewhat disappointing.
Is there any intention to make softwares to work with Linux?
No Tiger version = not for me. It's like developing for Vista only.
2008-10-20 23:20:43 +0400
Link (dyld) error:
Symbol not found: _NSInternalInconsistencyExcept
Referenced from: /Users/zak/Downloads/Nokia Map Loader.app/Contents/MacOS/Noki
Expected in: /System/Library/Frameworks/Cor
No fast download (9.5Kb/sec on a 32Mb line)
On what remote server did you put this? :)
Having a look around I think I can see what's happened here. There may be one part of some software (not the Map Loader) that actually does reasonably require features in 10.5 to run. But beyond this there's been a general decision within Nokia to just abandon support for any older OS releases. Therefore, even if there is no technical reason for Nokia Map Loader to require 10.5, because it depends upon other pieces of Nokia software that also require 10.5 all Nokia software ends up requiring 10.5.
Yes, a line does need to be drawn in the decisions to support older OS releases in software development. But it should not be done artificially and not at the expense of keeping a decent sized eco-system going. Besides, the statistics gained for NMT are no doubt artificially skewed towards 10.5 users as early adopters will be more bleeding edge Mac users and Nokia themselves has decided to abandon support for 10.4 with recent releases of the NMT software.
Shame. I'm sure Nokia wouldn't like it if companies they work with (Apple, Microsoft or even Mobile Phone Carriers) dropped support for devices which were not Series 60 3rd Edition FP2.
I wonder what will happen with 10.6. Will Nokia abandon support for another chunk of their potential customer base that hasn't upgraded?
I was so excited to find this out at the beginning! But it does not support my mac which runs a Tiger ... I believe that there are still more Tiger users than Leopard users out there in the Mac society nowadays, at least it is the case around me. So, Steve, please add a Tiger support. Aren't having more users the top one important thing for a software? Thank you!
Hello every one,
I'm really happy to find out those days, Nokia starts truly to consider Mac Users as Geeks too and Professionnals too at last ! But, about Nokia Maps, could it become Tiger friendly please ?
Benjamin from France
Hi. Jussi said that Nokia Map Loader will work with Nokia 5800. But in fact it does not.
I tried to connect phone with cable and via Bluetooth - it does not work.
When I launch Map Loader I get the error: "config.cfg File couldn't be downloaded. Operation forbidden". And after that Map Loader says: "The phone does not seem to work with Nokia Map Loader".
Thanks so much for this. Having to go to someone elses house to transfer map data was a real pain. Hope this is the first of many Mac products!
Hi guys,
It's good to know that Nokia makes software for mac now.
Also Multimedia transfer is a Great app.
Keep the good work!
Gr.
I welcome this program for the mac and i am really happy that Nokia is developing mac solutions, which is something that other manufacturers dont do.
The program itself runs good, but i have a little problem. I know that there is a new map for Greece which is around 30MB, but when i connect through the map loader for mac it gives me only the old map which is 18MB.
Why is this happening?
Hi. I want to say that I still have the same problems as described above. Loader stops with a failure message when it tries to get the map list from the server. anyway...
One feature I would like to have in the software is that it can download and install the maps not only on connected phones but on memory cards, mounted via USB on the Mac. My E51's USB has only USB 1 speed (I think all Nokia phones have?). Transferring GBs of data takes a very long time. When the memory card is directly mounted, the data could be stored with USB 2 speed in a couple of minutes.
Thank you.
Esa, have you run the maps software on your phone prior to trying to connect to Mac?
If you have and it still does not work you should probably send feedback from the software itself, remember to include all relevant data. (application log etc.)
I would appreciate a Linux version (Red Hat/Fedora) very much. Because MacOSX is bassed on a BSD derivate, I guess that it isn't such a big step to Linux as it was from Windows "any-version" to MacOSX. BTW, I have an E51
Markus
Hi!
A woderful thing......that you support the mac, but, it won
Hi Fernando,
I've had the "This phone doesn
Hi,
I have E71 and the map loader does not work!
I do have Multimedia transfer installed.
Map loader gives Error message "The phone does not seem to work with Nokia Map loader
It's sad that Nokia think they're doing something good by releasing SW for the Mac ...
Just publish the specs, protocols, fileformats etc. and let the opensource community have a go at it.
We'd have Windows, Mac, Linux, BSD and possibly even S60 (think about it, who needs an extra computer, when, say, a N82 is so powerful by itself) maploaders by now ...
Atlantean; are you trying to stop Nokia Media Transfer for doing its thing? That breaks Map Loader, and that was what was wrong when I got that message.
And come on, Leopard only is no way like Vista only. Lots of things are Leopard only nowadays.
Last thing: Just realized Nokia Map Loader PC has a store now. Since it's just a front end for a html page, it should be easy to use the same thing on the Mac version, just make it load a different css. And with webkit it will sure look great.
@ Erling Jacobsen: good point about the benefits of letting Map Loader go open source. But I guess Steve A won't agree, because he'd be out of a job if anyone could make a map loader without the restrictions of Nokia's financial department. A non-profit coder wouldn't waste bits and bytes on Nokia's navigation license and city guides store...
Anyway, you don't need to wait for Nokia to publish the specs, because all you need to know is already out in the open.
For example, have a look at http://nokiamaps.site666.info . It has the links to all the map and sound files (all on Nokia's own server, so no copyrights are broken), and it tells you which files go into which folder on which phone.
A download manager to get the zip files, an unpacker to unwrap 'em, and some code to put the map files into the right folders, and remove 'em if needed.
You could throw in some extras. Things like: "compare date of zip file on server with date of zip file used on phone. If newer, ask user to update." Or: "keep log file of installed map files, so you can delete map for a single country without deleting all the others."
That's all you need to code your own map loader for any OS of your choice. Linux, Symbian, mobile Java... There's enough info available to make a map loader that outperforms what Nokia has to offer. (Sorry Steve ;)
If I wouldn't be too lazy to learn how to program...
Fernando: I let Nokia Media Transfer do its thing. I have rebooted both N95 and Mac but still no joy.
Atlantean: Hmm, try deleting E:/Cities/diskcache then, because I did that too after getting the error.
El que no desarrollen esta aplicaci
I'm using a 6120 and I'm getting the error:
Map catalogue loading failed.
Map loader couldn't download the list of available map regions. Possible causes include a lack of network connectivity or a problem on the maps server.
I have network connectivity, is there a problem with the maps server?
I greatly appreciate the release of the OS X version (although this should really always be included as a default, not an afterthought), but yes, please a Tiger version. It is a very reasonable request. No one is going to upgrade their OS just to run map loader.
Hi
I find that Nokia is not very customer oriented. Nokia introduced N95 2 years ago and ignored completely a part of their customer: Macusers. Only today some softwares are developped for Mac. But the software (Nokia Map Loader) doesn't work with mobile it supposed to work with. The developper recommend some tricks which don't work neither, as my N95 (with Leopard) is not recognized by Map Loader.
At this period of Christmas, I address to Windows' Gurus some words: Windows' Plug & PRAY. Grow up, come to Macworld ... Plug & Play
Hi
Thanks for the feedback so far
Some comments
Fernando - Yes if the interaction between music transferring and map loading is a problem, the short term solution is to tempoarily disable music transfer, or do what I do, wait until Nokia Multimedia Transfer (NMT) has done its thing. We have a new version of NMT coming which will improve the interaction
Linux - Not today. It is a growing platform so who knows in the future.
Software updater - Yes we get a lot of requests for that, probably our most requested item. So feedback duly noted. One day I hope we will have good news about this.
Sergey Zak - Tiger. Comparing Leopard to Vista I am surprised :-) Seriously, we have to draw a line somewhere. Leopard offers a lot of development advantages, and indications from stats we have on NMT indicate the vast majority of users are using Leopard. But I also know that will also disappoint the remaining Tiger users, (and at least one of my colleagues who is still using Panther)
Erling Jacobsen - Sorry you think our efforts for the Mac are sad. Nokia has plenty of open source initiatives, although I am not an expert on open source software to answer in great detail
Symbianism - No offence taken. We are not trying to create a monopoly on Map downloading. BTW you mention about checking the server for updates. That is actually in the Map Loader. As for deleting specific countries off of the device, yes it is something we would like to do, but not for version 1.0
Fernando again - Yes links to the store is next step.
For device specific issues, we will certainly be looking into them
Regards to you all - Steve
Does not work here at the moment. When my E51 is connected via USB I start the loader which begins to search installed maps on the phone. This seems to work. Then the program tries to download something from the Maps website - and fails:
"Map catalogue loading failed
Map Loader couldn't download the list of available map regions..."
Regards
olive
Hi all
To Tim Grady and Cristano Deane
It is possible to see what you have transferred to the device by looking at the history items. This shows what the Mac has transferred. To see what is on the device is currently not possible, but it is a well requested feature with the pc version too, so I hope we can add that in the future.
Tim if you have the maps you have transferred listed in the history, then you should see when there are updates detected on the server. The country itself will be highlight in red, and you can also check the "updated entries" list.
Bruce W - Obviously we like to give you Map Loader 2 for PC functionality (eg access to the maps store) soon. Not for this release though.
Tiger lobbying noted.
Greate!!!!! I was waited for a lot of time and now it comes! thank you nokia
Great application Steve A, thanks a lot. Works great with my 6210 Navigator. But WHY does it take 20 min to transfer 100MB of map data via USB? Should take a few seconds...
And a big applause to you for developing software for Mac a well, as Robb mentioned above. I have owned 4 SonyEricsson phones before, and all came with PC suites for Windows only. Really bad. I have mentioned this to some of my friends who work for SE, but no improvement so far.
Cheers from Sweden...
Another vote for Tiger support! Thanks for the effort though.
Doesn't xork for me on my N82 whereas I daily use my N82 with my MacBook via Bluetooth or USB (Nokia Multimedia Transfer, Mass Storage, etc...).
When I connect my N82 in mass storage mode, nothing happens on Nokia Map Loader.
When I connnect my N82 in PC Suite mode, Nokia Map Loader try to load something and finally says that my phone "...does not seem to work with Map Loader" (whereas it perfectly works on my PC at work).
I tried erasing the "Cities" folder on my microSD card = same issue...
I tried updating my Nokia Maps datas OTA = same issue...
Any idea ?
Thanks in advance
Does not work on my PowerBook running 10.5.5.
Have tried dozens of times to launch and always get the 'Map catalogue loading failed error'.
I've turned off every bit of firewall protection, reinstalled, dumped log files and prefs and not one bit of difference.
Eventually we need to have the same functionality as Map Loader 2 for the PC.
Initially the one thing would be handy is showing what maps database version is being used on the device.
Version 0.0.13h has just been released and you are notified that there is a new version available when you connect your phone via the PC version and given the option of updateding and removing the old maps. I have not see this happen with the Mac version.
Hi All
I have attempted to us Maploader with my N95 and OSX (10.5)PPC, however this is unsuccessful. I have also tried this with and intel Mac OSX (10.5)Intel and it works fine.
Can anyone else confirm that the problem that is affecting some people is due to PowerPC problem rather than any problem with the phone??
If the problem is PPC based is it possible to correct this, I assume that it may be something to do with method used to connect to the maps server.
Simon
All map loader does it to download files, put them right place in memory card. Unless there is a super secret patented processing involved, Nokia should release the RFC like spec.
The ongoing ignorance of Linux/BSD has a very interesting side effect, the $500 M Symbian foundation project and Nokia's claim of open source gets affected.
Thanks as a OS X user. Even while it is late for me.
Guys don't assume nobody on Mac are non techie types.
Unless you REQUIRE 64 bit GUI, Automatic Garbage Collection, Core animation is a very integral part of you application, you don't need to make anything Leopard only.
Where do you get your stats? Leopard has been a hell for some people and Apple is busy with iPhone and Intel, PowerPC comes last these days.
Why are you doing fantasy coding? On Windows you require .NET 3 which MS themselves are hesitant to require and OS X needs to be Leopard. There should be at least 10.4 compatibility.
Code professionally. Stop fantasy coding. You guys will cause Nokia to crash, believe me and it won't be good for ANY real smart phone user.
I am not comparing Tiger to Leopard, Steve. I am comparing targeting of your s/w development. It was always considered "wise" to look back a little and target for at least two latest major OS versions.
2000+XP, now XP+Vista, Tiger+Leopard.
And you (Nokia Mac unit) kindly did so with Nokia Multimedia Transfer; thank you!
But this new strategy sets a new precedent, which may upset some.
Leopard is slow on PPC processors, and not all of us want to buy new macs to load Nokia maps :)
While I can understand that supporting two systems may put some extra effort (is that really hard to?), I also see very valid point in Ilgaz's comment.
I endorse previous comments by Sergey Zak and ligaz; I am glad that you are trying to accommodate Mac users but after waiting patiently for 19 months I am somewhat miffed to discover you are ignoring OS X 10.4 users. So I guess there is no point in hanging on for any other PC Suite applications . . . ?
GX
Ilgaz and Sergey: True, no one *needs* to do anything Leopard only, but choosing that gives the developers a lot better tools to use. Also APIs are much better, both in terms of new functionality and bug fixes. Garbage collection and ObjC 2.0 are some of the highlights.
I do not know, but I would guess that Nokia has some statistics based on downloads of their Multimedia Transfer software. Also just looking at Apple breaking quarterly sales record almost every time makes both Intel and Leopard a really big chunk of Mac users. Good sales of Leopard Upgrade help too.
As far as I know there is quite a bit of software that has been released only for 10.5, so this is not that special, but sure, I feel your pain.
Further to Ben's comment Dec 6 @8:48 PM:
One of the reasons that we have been so happy on the Mac platform, in our case for 23 years, is that we can stay with 'older' software and hardware for a long time, and have not been forced into taking every new OS version that pops up!
Please stop creating a different/ separate app for each task you are trying to perform on the phone using a computer.
Or else you are repeating the Wincrap glory fest: Software Updater, Map Loader, PC Suite, Download etc. by the time we are done, I have got aps all over, forgot what each does without mentioning the need to keep them all up-to-date. Silly, really.
On Mac: keep it simple stupid. Roll Map Loader, Media Transfer and Software Updater into one app for any given Nokia phone: the application detects which it is and offers options/ actions accordingly.
One app: simple, does not crash, fast, clean code and smart. It's all one and the same thing: a good user experience.
Thanks.
Oh I forgot: please stop putting out a gazilion different phone models.
Merge the business and N Series. For instance: I have a E71-1 and a E71-2 and while I love the job done, I can't keep but feel you only went so far for marketing BS distinctions. Why on earth not put a 3.5mm jack in there, the software behind the camera does a horrendous job and the GPS software takes way to long to lock-in a signal when not assisted. What the hell? What you are you thinking????
I would love to see the end of the million-models reign and kill the thickness on the N Series phones too while you are it: it's ridiculous, it's 2009.
When will the Nokia 5800 ExpressMusic be supported? My phone works fine with the MultiMediaTransfer application but Map-loader refuses to connect to it - It says it can't download 'config.cfg' and that the phone is unsupported :-(
It doesnt wor on my E71 (110.07.27)
installed is Multimedia Transfer (v1.3(5811)) - it works fine for music - perfectly.
But the Map loader never found maps on my mobile.
"Map catalogue loading failed. Map Loader couldn't download the list of available map reagons...."
I tried differnt things like delete all cities an memory card and start maps again and so on but always the same problem.
It works fine on an E90.
Thx
Hi,
first of all thanks.
Two suggestion for this software improvemente (very very important for me):
1) i can't see what region/country i already have on my device, so if i'm not usre i have to upload again. i think should not difficult to have a "already on device"
2) should be very good the possibility to download from nokia maps with device disconnected, so i only need to upload to it later, when i need.
Thanks again. waiting fo ovi now.. plans?
Cris
I'm really impressed. This works just great for my n95 on my macbook!..., but my wife's still using a g4 mac with 10.4.11 (and I don't think she can move to 10.5 yet) so she isn't able to directly load maps in her phone from her computer.
I know for a fact there's still some people tied to 10.4.11 for a number of reasons, so I think it's important to try to support it.
I think we mac users would really enjoy having also a software updater for the mac, and a content copier at least (a full pc... mac-suite perhaps?)
Nokia Maps loader can't find mys e90 even Nokia Multimedia Tranwer works fine? Bluetooth doesnt work either... Any ideas?
Oh apparently you cant cancel the "Preparing iTunes transfers" or else Map Loader does not work.
Ok I'm in. It looks very good indeed, the map background is a great idea.
History, now we have a feature that our PC counterpart does not have, yay :P
Clear Maps data looks like it works better, but it always detects 2.6mb of data even tho I just cleared it.
Just transfered the Maps of michigan using it, and besides it being slowish (same as the PC app) everything worked smoothly! Yay!
So my feedback is: Get Nokia Media Transfer to be more silent about transferring things when I'm using Map Loader.
To Nico
Sorry, no plans for a Tiger version.
Yay!
One thing though, will there be a Tiger version?
Awesome, I'm very impressed you are finally starting to acknowledge that Nokia users are mac users in many instances!!!
keep it up please!
cheers.
1st thought: Can maploader disable iTunes transfers temporally, I don't want it to be looking and transfering songs while I'm using map loader.
2nd: It looks very good!
3rd: Nokia N95: This phone doesn't seem to work with Nokia Map Loader.
what? will delete all traces of maps from the memory card and try again.
Linux, anyone?
Using a MacBook and E61: No Problems so far.
Downloaded, connected and worked like a charm.
Good work guys, keep on going.
Btw, there is one more thing (missing): Nokia Software Updater for Mac. ;-)
Thanks, thanks, thanks...
Thank you Nokia for taking Mac users in consideration ! You are the only mobile phones manufacturer to behave this way, and that's one of the reasons why I am still considering replacing a Nokia by ... a Nokia: N90, N93, N95, E90, N82, N95 8GB, and now N96.
Keep on the good work and as someone already said above: I miss Nokia Software Updater on Mac OS quite a lot ;)
Thanks !
Update from E61 to E66 and still using my MacBook.
Still no problems to report.
Now I'm waiting for the NSU... ;-)
Ingo
Re: map loader saying it doesn't seem to work on with a phone it should work it, it's a pesky problem that's causing some grey hairs. Basically it's caused by Map Loader finding the cities/diskcache/qf file but not managing to read it for some reason. It should be helped by the next NMT version, but before that, I'd suggest just trying again after reconnecting the phone or restarting the phone or NMT, browsing the device with the device browser, etc. It probably helps if NMT isn't busy with other things at the same time. Yeah, not very nice.
As for the network connection problems, there isn't much I can suggest there: maybe just try again later? If you have access to a PC and can run the PC version, you could try and see if the same problem occurs there, as they use the same servers. If it fails consistently on Mac and consistently works on PC, I'd love to hear about it (or, more accurately, I'd hate to hear it, but it would be useful to know if that happens.)
Thanks for your response Jussi. It would have been nice to have had some solid info from Nokia on their reasoning rather than defence from a fellow outsider whose just making educated guesses as I am though.
Unfortunately the link you provide doesn't work, but I can assure you I'm familiar with the arguments for only supporting 10.5. And they largely don't cut it. It's too early to abandon 10.4 despite things like Objective C 2.0. Very few apps absolutely depend upon new API features as I've already outlined, for some smaller devs it's easier to abandon 10.4 but that doesn't mean it makes sense.
Here's a link for you and for Nokia. Omnigroup (a popular and successful independent OS X developer) release their statistics gathered by their software update program.
http://update.omnigroup.com/
Their customer base shows more 10.4 users than 10.5 users today. Is this absolute? Of course not, but I think it gives an indication of real world numbers out there and potential install bases for Nokia apps. Some would even say Omni's stats are skewed towards customers with newer machines and who are more likely to upgrade their OS than your average user.
Look at the number of people posting here saying it's a shame there's no 10.4 support. Are you supporting the idea that Nokia ignore these potential users and focus on people who've bought a computer and a phone in the last 12 months? Take into account the future, for sure. But don't limit yourself today because of it. If you're always chasing what's up ahead you can miss opportunities today.
I didn't realise NMT had only recently dropped support for 10.4. So my argument about the figures being self selecting due to this may well be flawed. Thanks for pointing this out though, if anything I think it adds support to the idea that the dropping of 10.4 has been an artificial decision. But I do still believe that the majority of those hitting these betalabs pages will be bleeding edge users not representative of the wider public and potential audience for these apps. And while you may suggest this is daring of me I think it's quite rational. And if Nokia were honest I think they'd agree.
Is supporting only 10.5 an easy option? Undoubtedly. Is it the right one.. quite possible not. You're not only limiting your target audience but also potentially letting your development be limited by what is currently available and by the new toys. Never a good idea. While taking advantage of new features is great, this shouldn't be at the expense of core development or of customer experience.
The point is I don't think Nokia have made this as a serious development decision. I've yet to see any sound technical reason why 10.5 is necessary or how it improves things for users of these apps. They've made it as the easiest/cheapest decision. This means they are not taking the platform seriously they're just dabbling. Hopefully this will change and the teams and budgets involved will grow. But right now this isn't a customer based effort, it's an internal experiment. Nothing more. And they're not going to win over the wider Mac market as Nokia clearly hope to (especially with the iPhone around). Most people who buy phones and Macs just want stuff to work, they don't upgrade their OS each year, they stick with what they have.
I'll re-iterate. If there is a valid API reason. Something that did not exist in 10.4 that these applications absolutely must use, then I'm all ears. In the mean time I hope Nokia continue in their efforts to support the Mac and take the platform seriously. It's good to see them at least trying :)
I have Nokia 5800 Xpress Music. In user guide I see that I can use Nokia MapsLoader for Mac, but I cannot see Nokia 5800 in the list of supported models.
Will it work on my phone?
It works now with 5800 XMusic!
Once I launched Map Loader there was update available. After upgrade it started on my mac with 5800. Cool!
hi i had maps already downloaded but after i upgraded my maps loader version i started having problemsand couldn't update entries. i cleared maps and erased the cities from the file manager on my N96. now when i try to download the maps i erased it says and error has occured whiledownloading data to your phone? how do i fix this? i'm about to travel abroad and wanted to try using nokia maps
- Too slow startup on my machine (Intel MacBook 2 Ghz Core 2 Duo) i.e. the time from connection initiation to "Start choosing a region". I used Bluetooth which is probably the bottleneck but hey init shouldn't send massive amount of files... The maploader just had progress animation bar and didn't even hint how long I should wait - I started to wonder is it even working.
- In the beginning, I had trouble even to figure our on how to start the upload. I just opened the Maploader which had quite a confusing note in it which sad in long passage of text "to connect the device". I had to go back to read instructions from this blog (users shouldn't need to reads instructions anyway for simple tasks like these). I found it strange I need to use another tool to make the connection, then I didn't want to do any sync with Multimedia Transfer to make the BT connection so I had to disable all the media sync settings from Media transfer for this tool... D'Oh!
- It would be best to distribute this as a DMG file rather than ZIp.
- On left I saw under History Show all etc. button, I wondered what it does and pressed it - the button just vanished and nothing happened.
- Double click on table header will take the highlighted element to right side for downloading (tried to sort by size but didn't work)
- The initializing phase of downloading is very slow... It's rather annoying as that yet doesn't show definite progress bar.
- Quite nice UI...
A speech file transfer went OK but a map transfer said (BT transfer): "The following errors occured while transferring files ..." "16b90.cdt" - "16b91.cdt" File couldn't be uploaded. The device refuse the ... an error code (200). Still transferring though in Map Loader (progress bar goes on). E90 didn't give any complaints and showed (BT) [i.e. bluetooth icon in brackets] icon which I guess shows the connection is OK. Transfer went OK (took about an hour or so). Don't know if I have now all of the map I requested...
Please a Tiger compatible version!!! I will pay for it!!!
Julia: Yes, it will work with your phone.
I also get
Congrats for all the things you're doing.
Are you planning to adapt Sokia Software Updater on MAC?
Thanks.
I got N95 8GB and I'm using PowerBook G4 with Mac OS 10.5.6
In the beginning I used to have "config.cfg" error on the Nokia multimedia transfer accompanied by "This phone doesn
Hi Ian, the MapLoader works with my 5800 Nokia like a charm. The only thing that does not work properly is the bluetooth syncing with the MapLoader. BR
Firstly, it's great to see more support of the Mac from Nokia. But I've got to add my voice to the 'why 10.5 only' crowd. Sure, there are benefits in developing on 10.5 and using the newer XCode and development tools, but there is very little reason to not also target 10.4, unless you're using some of the specific new libraries.
Sniffing around the Nokia Map Loader binary it's not relying heavily on anything 10.5 specific and I can only assume that the 10.5 requirement is down to lazy programming. I could be wrong, but there's be no technical explanation of what 10.5 only features Nokia Map Loader is dependant upon that could not
Yes, there are 10.5 only apps out there, but they're generally either (i) very specialist (ii) graphically intensive and requiring newer OpenGL features (iii) computationally intensive and requiring extra 64-bit support (iv) produced by inexperienced programmers.
I can appreciate that there are limited resources, but I think Nokia really need to look at this again. Or at least give a full explanation of why this app requires 10.5 and why it was decided to not support 10.4.
Ben, as I see it the answers have mostly been already given by Steve A. I will reiterate:
"there is very little reason to not also target 10.4"
There were lots of changes in Apple APIs. 10.5 also added ObjC 2.0, Garbage Collection and Core Animation. I would assume all of the last three are used in the application. All these will make it faster (equals cheaper) to develop and make the resulting software better, less crashes, less bugs and more eye candy. None of those are trivial, nor cost effective, to backport to 10.4.
A good discussion about this can be found here: http://theocacao.com/document.
"the statistics gained for NMT are no doubt artificially skewed towards 10.5 users as early adopters will be more bleeding edge Mac users and Nokia themselves has decided to abandon support for 10.4 with recent releases of the NMT software"
It sounds quite daring of you to suggest that Nokia's data of their own users is skewed. Of course it is not representitave of all Mac users, but what is important, that is the real market for *their* software. So while it may be "skewed" from a point of view, it is skewed the exactly right way for *them*.
You correctly note that NMT does not support 10.4, this has been the case only for a week or two. It most clearly has not affected Nokia's stats the time Map Loader was released nor at the time when the decision must have been made.
Keep also in mind that the decision of supported platforms should not be done for *today* but for the lifetime of the application, which in this case is probably several years. The cold fact is that Tiger users, who download and use software from the internet to trasnsfer maps on their mobile phone, are already relatively few, and the group gets smaller every day, both in absolute numbers and even quicker in ratio.
"I wonder what will happen with 10.6. Will Nokia abandon support for another chunk of their potential customer base that hasn
Just downloading this, many thanks.
Thanks. This application looks great visually and is very easy to use. I have both your PC programs and the Mac ones. The PC ones are very powerful, but I am amazed by how easy to use and yet powerful the Mac ones are. They do everything I want on a daily basis without any hassle.
Question:
I have 3 GB of maps on my phone right now. How do I determine if there are updated versions available? As far as I can tell, I would have to redownload everything to make sure that I have the latest updates...
Tim
No Tiger, such a pain ... unfortunately, Steve, my experience with Multimedia Transfer 1.3 Beta, which deleted all stored images and videos when I installed it , does not make me that keen to try maploader, even IF I was on 10.5x ... But, please, keep on going, there are a load of Mac users, even here in Finland !
Does anyone know if you can use the Multimedia App for installing .sis files via mac? Or is there a way to do it via mac?
Hi Matt,
The best method for installing sis files with a Mac is using "Nokia Device Browser" which is part of NMT (Nokia Multimedia Transfer). All you need to do is drag and drop the SIS files to a folder on the phone and install.
Si.
"The instructions should be something close to this:
1) Start
Using OS X 10.5 and N95. All I get is the error message " The phone does not seem to work with Nokia Map loader" This error message has been posted several times but it seems with no response. A list of compatible Nokia phones would help!
OK, now after the january update ML for Mac has worked for the first time with my E51. Some observations:
- After I uploaded one additional map with MLfM it tried indefinitely to read free/used memory from the phone and a spinning progress bar was shown in the lower left corner of the app window.
- When I quit the app while the progress bar was spinning and restarted it, it crashed.
- When I had unplugged my phone from USB and reconnect it, MLfM started again.
- It is a little confusing that MLfM does not show which maps are already installed on the phone - only the maps that have been uploaded using MLfM. This makes it impossible to see for which of the installed maps updates are available.
- I really wished MLfM could write the maps data directly to the memory card when that is mounted via card reader on the Mac (should speed up map installation by factor 10).
olive
Hey,
My mac is not that old and I am quite attached to it, so I am pissed off royally that maploader doesn't work on it. My pride doesn't allow me to go to friends with PCs and ask if I can download maps from their machines.
So, do I exist as the only person in town without maps on the phone? Not really.
Okay, so do I get a new phone or a new laptop? Hmmm....... let's think.... goodbye phone.
Goodbye nokia
Majed, Thank you for your help.
I followed your instructions. The message is different now. But it does not work any way.
Now Map Loader says that it couldn't download the list of available map regions. Possible causes include a lack of network connectivity or a problem on the maps server.
It sounds more promised now. I will try later. Hope it'll work.
Hi Viktor. Thanks for that info, it gave me the confidence to keep trying and I wasn't wasting my time. I think I've sorted it - if I start map loader after connecting the phone it does not work, if I start map loader then connect the phone it (so far) does work.
It'd be good to see Nokia supporting Mac to the same level as Windows, after all, one reason for me choosing Nokia is to avoid Windows mobile as I'm a Mac/Linux user!
Robert: I understand that you are upset, but frankly the choice is not new phone or new laptop. Most likely there is an additional (and cheaper) way: update the OS. It costs around 83 pounds, much less than a brand new laptop and it will likely make your current computer one faster.
Great!
Not only do I also get the 'This phone doesn
Hi,
why does the Nokia Map updater(Mac Version) doesn't work with Maps 3.0beta? I tried it via Bluetooth.
Is there a solution to solve the compatility problem?
Thanks !
Obi
HI,
See comment 116;
I have an e51. The map loader application for mac worked last week.
However, it has stopped working and I get a response like comment 116.
The new MAC application is great but no details are given on which maps & voices are already loaded on the phone. Since Nokia or OVI do not give this information either, how can I tell where the data is stored.