One of the ways OEMs can help their products stand out from the competition is by offering up exclusive apps that other brands will not have access to. We’ve seen companies like Samsung do this, and we’ve also seen Nokia do this, but it seems that Nokia might be having a change of heart thanks to job listings.
According to a couple of job listings, it seems that Nokia is interested in bringing their HERE suite of apps onto iOS and Android platforms. The job listing reads, “As an Android / iOS developer you will be a key member of our growing mobile engineering team, developing industry-leading mobile SDKs / applications. This is an experienced position that requires fluency in the latest Java capabilities and improvements in the Android and iOS SDK.”
The listing also asks that the candidate have experience in shipping iOS or Android apps. “The ideal candidate will have experience shipping one or more Android / iOS apps, currently on Google Play / Apple Store.” It later mentions that the team they will be working for, “The position will be based in Berlin / Frankfurt and will report to the Tem [sic] Lead Development team Mobile SKDs for Business, HERE Platform for Business.”
Unfortunately the listing does not tell us what kind of apps Nokia plans on bringing, apart from broadly mentioning that it will be part of their HERE platform, so we could either be looking at the entire suite of HERE apps, or we could be looking at HERE Maps. However it is an interesting choice, especially since last year Nokia pulled their HERE Maps from iOS, claiming that the changes made in iOS 7 would harm the user experience.