GPS – Windows Live Search

I have Tom Tom Navigator on my Pocket PC Phone and it is a great navigation product. I don?t use it much but when I do it works great.

I was surfing the interwebs the other day and I see that Microsoft has released Windows Live Search for Windows Mobile. It is a internet enabled mapping / traffic / directions program with GPS capability.

I have tried Google Maps Mobile and I didn?t it. I only tried it once and its performance was severly lacking. I don?t think this is a problem with Google Maps in general but I think it is a problem with how Windows Mobile runs Java applications. I have seen Google Maps Mobile on Palm Treo?s and Blackberry?s and they seem to run GMM just fine.

Back to WLS

What I liked about this plugin is that it is a native application that you can install. Visit from your phone?s browser http://wls.live.com/ and then choose ?Download for your Windows Mobile Phone??? and then you will be prompted to download and install. Take all the defaults during the install.

The mapping features where nice and just like Google?s where you can have street view and satelitte view. You can also use a Bluetooth GPS receiver and tell the map to auto center on your GPS position.

The best part of this is that it is free. Free is good.

The bad part of this program is that the maps only work when you have an internet connection. So if you don?t have internet enabled or you are out of range then you are out of luck.

Loren Nason
Future of Real Estate Technology

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