Discovering Pakistan with OVI Maps

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I was never a big OVI Maps fan , Nokia and Navteq not having detailed maps of Pakistan or even my city Karachi , one of the largest metropolis of the world with a population upward of 17 million people , OVI Maps were no use for me and I was using Garmin XT with freeware maps made by Pakistani map enthusiast .

For the past 2 days I’d been travelling extensively in interior Pakistan covering Rahim Yar Khan and Bahawalpur and here I developed the respect and appreciation for OVI Maps .

While traveling between Rahim Yar Khan and Bahawalpur , a 200 km plus journey I was using Gravity to update my location status on Facebook and Twitter through FourSquare however no matter how I tried , FourSquare refused to connect to GPS .

With no other solution at hand , I switched to OVI Maps , version  3.03 10 wk 01 . At first the skeptic in me was like I’m making a mistake and without maps it will be of no use , but I got nothing to loose .

To my surprise , OVI Maps was very responsive in location sharing , I already had my OVI account and FaceBook account setup on OVI Maps and location sharing with the ever present icon . To my surprise not only it was sharing my location but also allowed me to share photographs I’ve taken of the places with friends and family on FaceBook .

Mission Accomplished , not for me there were many more options to try which I never did used , so I switched to mapping and searched for Categories and Transport , I was thinking may be I’ll get hold of Bahawalpur Airport so I can mark how far is Bahawalpur is from me and it showed me the PTDC ( Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation ) Motel which was my destination in Bahawalpur , I saved the place as a favorite and continued to explore what else in Pakistan, around my location , Nokia OVI has in store .

Now what I found could start a riot over Nokia in Pakistan like it once did in India – OVI Maps were showing in description both Bahawalpur and Multan both as in India although the map showed them in Pakistan , now Multan is the city of Pakistan’s Prime Minister , you better fix it Nokia .

There wasn’t much on Categories , mostly showing me India some 100 kms away and UAE some 1700 kms away so I switched to Lonely Planet and that’s where the treasure cove of information was .

Divided in different categories comprising of

See for attraction around from Museums to renown places in the city

Shop for shopping malls and things

Eat for the eateries and restaurants

Sleep for the Hotels and Motels

General for Miscellaneous things like banks , Money Changers , Hospitals etc.

Not only did Lonely Planet got the listing of places , their description , Address , Contact number which could be dialed with one click and even Map coordinates to see their position on OVI Maps and navigate to them .

With PTDC Motel marked , I shifted to Drive Navigation , choose English as my guidance language , although also had Urdu installed , and viola it showed me over the highway , 16 Km away from my destination and running towards it at 100 kmph with OVI Maps voice navigating me .

Another nifty feature OVI Maps has is the weather information of current place along with sun set timings , it’s good to have it handy to see what the weather is currently like and what to expect in the  next few days .

 

Who knew one out of necessity turn of events will make me a fan of OVI Maps , still it’s of limited use  for my daily routine but when travelling it sure helps me  discovering Pakistan .

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Tagged as: Maps, Nokia, Ovi