According to the official Ovi Blog, the enormous HRS system is beginning to appear in the homescreen of Ovi Maps 3.3 (and beyond), offering hotel searching by proximity to your current location, with navigation to a hotel handled within the application. There's also integration with other phone functions, to allow real time availability checking and booking. Initially HRS is appearing in just Germany and Finland, but other countries should see this rolled out quite soon too. Some quotes and screens below.
Read on in the full article.
quite interesting how that works - I have automatic syncing enabled, and seemingly without downloading an update, the HRS symbol just appeared after a few seconds when I started ovi maps yesterday.
Interesting concepts, but I wonder how they solve the problem once more 'apps on maps' appear than fit into the ovi maps home screen. I hope they will let you choose only the ones you actually want and rearrange them. I am particuarly looking forward to the DeutscheBahn (German railways) one they demoed at Nokia World...
the hrs "app" works quite good. we need more apps like this. for example to find the next bus stop in an unknown city. that's why I'm looking forward to the deutschebahn app too.
Pretty cool, though is this only Europe-based or will I may be able to use this here in New York?
Come on, Nokia, throw us NAM owners a bone once in a while. I understand it works with a European hotel reservation site, but there are multiple U.S. based businesses that do this as well.
I'd love it if Nokia partnered with, say, Zagat's or some other service to offer reservations to hotels, restaurants, etc. etc. for both the Euro and North American market.