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With Apple Outage, Nokia Picks a Tough Day to Launch iOS Maps App

The free maps software touts offline capabilities, real-time traffic and public transit directions as key selling points.

Nokia

After being only on Windows and Android for some time, Nokia has finally launched an iOS version of its Here maps tool.

Of course, thanks to a long App Store outage on Wednesday, it was tough for anyone to actually download the program, which aims to offer an alternative to Google Maps and Apple’s built-in iOS maps program.

Nokia touts its offline capabilities as well as real-time traffic and public transit information.

Along with network equipment and patent licensing, mapping software is one of the main businesses for Nokia now that it has sold its phone unit to Microsoft.

Nokia had an earlier mapping program for iOS, though that was largely a Web app and lacked many of the features found in this version, particularly the ability to work offline.

The Finnish company released the Android version of Here as a beta for Samsung phones last year and has since made it more broadly available and removed the beta tag.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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