HERE has some bad news for Windows Phone users. The mapping service has announced that it will cease support for all Windows Phone devices from 30 June 2016. After the date, all HERE branded apps will be removed from the Windows store and the HERE Maps app will stop working on phones running Windows 10 Mobile.
According to HERE the decision to stop supporting Windows devices was made due to the increasing amount of work needed to keep the mapping app working. The switch to Windows 10 would apparently require the company to rebuild the app from the ground up; a scenario that was apparently not attractive to HERE’s new owners.
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Nokia had sold HERE to a consortium of German automakers back in August 2015; which makes this decision not too surprising. The group intends to use HERE’s services and expertise to improve GPS features on their cars, and support for mobile devices has likely taken a backseat. Continued support for Windows 10 is simply an unfortunate casualty of this change in direction.
That being said, devices running on Windows Phone 8.1 will still be able to use the HERE maps app. Microsoft had made the app an integral part of the operating system, and it looks like HERE will allow it to keep accessing its mapping services. However, HERE cautions that there will no longer be any maps developed specifically for Windows Phone devices.
[Source: HERE]
