Nokia outs Android Public Beta for HERE Maps, let's you test drive the new contextual menu

Nokia's excellent offline navigation suite HERE Maps might be considering to sell itself out to the highest bidder, but this hasn't precluded the team from outing more and more features. Just in the span of a short year or so, HERE has become one of the leading navigation apps for Android, if we discount the integrated Google Maps, whose offline capabilities, however, pale in comparison.

To sweeten the free deal even further, the HERE team just introduced an Android Public Beta for its Maps app, which will bring new features to early adopters in the fastest way possible. This means that users who sign up for the public beta, will be able to preview and test drive the new interface and functionality changes before they are released to the official app in the Play Store for the general user.

First in line to seduce you towards ditching your stable HERE app version is the new interface, and specifically its context menu. With the newest beta version you are able to long-press anywhere on the screen, and contextual circles will appear, which will let you preview the location info, share a place, get directions to it, or start driving towards that goal, all without the need for leaving the map, and going to the main menu. If you are interested, you can sign up for the Android Beta of HERE Maps from the source link below.

source: Nokia (HERE 360 blog)