Nokia's Here Maps is coming to Android only for Samsung Galaxy Series

Smsung unveiled its new new smartwatch yesterday, the Tizen-powered Gear S that’s capable of making calls and going online without relying on a smartphone. Other features, as noted at the time, include turn-by-turn navigation provided by Nokia’s HERE mapping platform.

Today, Nokia revealed further details of its plans for HERE, announcing it will be used on Tizen smartphones (and wearables), while a new licensing agreement with Samsung will see HERE launch on Android for the first time, albeit exclusively for its Galaxy-branded smartphones. It will be classed as a ‘beta’ product initially.

This deal will also enable you to pair the app with the upcoming Samsung Gear S, meaning you can sync routes between your wrist and your phone.

The app comes with many of the features you'd find in Google Maps, but also excels in some areas where Google doesn't. A couple of examples include true offline maps, which are currently supported in 95 countries, and LiveSight, which lets users navigate to landmarks by following virtual signs on their screen.

The app is predictably built with a Windows 8 look and feel, with jagged edges and flat colors used throughout the app. Here also has a tool called Glympse, which enables users to update friends about their current location, and what time they will arrive for meetings. It’s also compatible with Samsung’s in-car mode, so you can voice control the whole mapping application, something else that somewhat treads on Google’s toes.

The relationship between Samsung and Google is one of the more turbulent in tech. Both companies rely heavily on each other, but neither seems all that happy about it. Now, with Samsung adopting Here Maps, the very same service used on Windows Phones, the Korean company has once again moved away from Google’s own services in Android.