The Nokia Beta Labs’ latest offering is called Here & Now, and it’s setup as a web service that will potentially be preinstalled in all new Nokias, likely starting later this year. The application uses location-based services to give you weather details for your current location. Currently, it also gives information about events taking place near you, such as concerts or other shows. The Beta Labs say that, in the future, more services will be added to this, for an all-inclusive web service.
There are 2 problems that I have with Here & Now, after trying it out this morning on my Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. First, it doesn’t put an icon anywhere on your phone. Instead, it installs itself as a bookmark in your web browser. That’s not going to entice new users to check it out, as it’s relatively hidden (I had trouble finding it till I read the instructions). With all the junk links that Nokia puts in our smartphones, it’s not extremely likely that new users will see it in there and be interested, which means it’s got a limited potential market, in my opinion.
Second, it doesn’t really work on the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, or older phones such as the Nokia N95 or N82. It’s currently only supported on S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 devices such as the Nokia N79 or E75. Cool, so……we early adopters, with our 5800 XpressMusics, or the folks who dump $700+ for the N97 in a few months can’t use it. That’s sure annoying.
However, assuming they add support for S60 5th Edition soon, what other services would you like to see included in this? I would really like to see a movie showtimes addition, complete with the ability to purchase tickets from my phone. Any other ideas?
In any case, you can check it out here, or watch the video below to get an idea.
