Apple Maps sucks hard, but Nokia’s navigation solution, a product called Here that was just announced today, is fast as hell.
You can try it in on the desktop or in web app form at m.here.net. I wish I had had this over the weekend — I visited San Francisco for the first time and kept forgetting Apple Maps lacks transit directions. And I cried and cried. Here, on the other hand, is an answer to your commuting woes. And you don’t even have to download an app or anything. Here works in multiple browsers across major operating systems — we tried it on iOS, Android and Windows Phone. However, it did freeze up a little for us in Chrome on Android and IE on Windows Phone.
Nokia already powers maps for a laundry list of services — Rand McNally, Garmin, Bing, Yahoo Maps and more. That alone speaks volumes about its reliability. The company’s Stephen Elop said the location data is “very, very fresh”, and it seems he’s right. Just from tooling around with Here for a few minutes, it generally knows what you’re looking for before you finish typing, and directions load incredibly fast. At least some of us now have a reprieve from the hellacious Apple Maps nightmare. [AllThingsD]