Earlier this year in August, Nokia, the Finland tech company that is left after it sold its cellphone segment to Microsoft, introduced new versions of its Here mapping app, and additionally announced that the navigation app will be made available to Samsung handsets, particularly Galaxy devices powered by both Android and Tizen, as well as other Android-run devices. The app eventually arrived on Samsung Galaxy units in early October. As for the app's release date for other Android handsets, no announcement was ever made.
It turns out that the release date is today. As stated in an entry posted in Nokia's Here blog, the app is already available for all supported Android smartphones starting today. Nokia stated that it is testing as many Android devices as they can, but the general requirement is that the device should have an Android 4.1 Jelly Bean operating system or higher. The company also recommended that for best results, the smartphone should have at least 1 gigabyte of random access memory, as well as a display screen size of 4 to 6 inches.
It should be noted however that Nokia is yet to launch the Here app for Android on Google Play. Instead, users are advised to “side-load” the app onto their devices from Nokia's official website, or side-load it onto their devices from a personal computer. Details are found here. It does make sense for Nokia to hold off launching via Google Play for now. The app after all is still in beta testing, and it is quite understandable that Nokia wants to perfect the app before giving it a wide release.
Here maps is one of Nokia's surviving business segments, and it includes the mapping apps found on iOS, Windows Phone, Tizen, and now Android too, plus the mapping deals which led to Here being used on websites and other mobile devices (e.g. Microsoft Lumia handsets). Here maps grew from Nokia acquiring Navteq back in 2007, and is now considered a good alternative mapping app to those used by Apple or Google, with traffic and transit information and weather data combined with maps of around 200 countries, navigational tips, and even place and business establishment search, among others.
Other features of the Here mapping app include Collections (which collects all the favorite hangouts of the user), and of course, Glympse, which allows users to share their current locations to friends and family but only for a limited time (anytime the users want to stop the sharing of their locations, they can just disable it at will).
