For Indians before Google Maps, there was MapMyIndia. The New Delhi based company has announced that the GPS navigation system in BMW’s 7 series will be powered by MapMyIndia. The navigation system called ‘BMW Navigation Professional’ will be a standard part of BMW’s flagship 7 series model and could be extended to others thereafter.
MapMyIndia prides itself on having one of the most accurate and detailed solutions to India’s last mile navigation problems. It has approximately 3 million Points of Interest across 50 categories such as hotels, ATMs, petrol pumps, restaurants etc. The maps span 902 Indian cities and over a million kilometers of highways and roads connecting over 574,000 towns and villages across the country. The content is updated twice in a year.
As far as BMW’s Navigation Professional is concerned – the MapMyIndia maps – will store locations of BMW dealerships for after-sales and service throughout India. The bi-annual map updates will be available at these dealerships, ensuring that the data is current and comprehensive. A destination can be set by one of three methods – Previously visited locations, intuitive spelling entry or through their PIN codes. Based on the current location, the system will proceed to provide turn by turn directions to the destination.
Overall I think it is great that the luxury car segment is making the shift to integrated GPS navigation systems. But as someone who lives in Bangalore, where one-ways and routes can change several times in a day, and will almost certainly change over a period of a few months. I wonder if 2 updates a year is enough. I wouldn’t want to be driving in the opposite direction on a way street, especially in a BMW!
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