HERE Maps, the one-time Nokia-owned navigation and mapping app that Audi, BMW and Mercedes bought last year, is dropping support for Microsoft’s Windows 10 Mobile. The company is also reducing support for its Windows Phone 8 apps to just critical bug fixes and will not be adding new features.
According to the blog post announcing the change, the current HERE app on Windows 10 devices is based on a workaround that won’t work with the wide release of Windows 10 Mobile later this year.
“To continue offering the HERE apps for Windows 10 would require us to redevelop the apps from the ground up, a scenario that led to the business decision to remove our apps from the Windows 10 store,” HERE spokesman Pino Bonetti said.
Microsoft acquired Nokia’s smartphone division in 2013, but it didn’t buy the mapping division. That business was sold for $2.8 billion last year to a group of German automakers as they ramped up efforts to build smarter cars.
The move is another blow to smartphone users running Windows 10. Banks, airlines and social networks have all ended support for Windows phones in recent months. And Microsoft itself is leaving the platform behind in some ways, with a growing focus on purchasing popular Android and iOS apps while ending a project for porting programs that would increase the number of apps on Windows 10 Mobile.
The Windows 10 HERE app will be pulled from the Windows Store on March 29 and won’t work after June 30. HERE encouraged users to switch to the native Windows Maps app as a replacement.
