Last month at the Mobile World Congress, we got the opportunity to look at a pre-release version of Nokia Drive 2.0, the company’s navigation app for Windows Phone. That edition showed some big functional improvements over the current release of Drive, including support for offline navigation. After a short wait, the new Nokia Drive 2.0 is finally available today, alongside a new version of Nokia Maps.
When you’re out driving in an unfamiliar area, exactly the sort of situation where you might find yourself using Nokia Drive, you’re not likely to know about any gaps in cellular coverage until it’s too late. If you end up forced to change your route under such circumstances, you could quickly find yourself in a tricky situation; with today’s update, though, the app will now be able to used cached map data to support fully-offline route planning and navigation. In addition to the offline mode, Drive 2.0 also adds audio speed limit alerts, an ETA display, and new tracking of previous destinations.
The changes to Maps, bringing the app up to version 1.3, aren’t nearly as exciting as the Drive changes, but we’ll take them, all the same. Maps will now display more points of interest at once, hopefully making it easier to find interesting places to visit. If you want to let your friends know about some neat place you find, the app now allows you to share routes and places over social networks. You can also set up favorite places, pinning them on your home screen if you so choose, and the app gets expanded support for Asian countries.
