Microsoft's new Maps app comes to phones with latest Windows 10 Technical Preview build, with guided navigation features from HERE maps, traffic data from Bing
Navigate the World with Windows 10 Maps for Phone — Hello! I'm Aaron Butcher and I'm the Group Program Manager for the Maps Team …
Context & Ripple Effects
Microsoft's Maps team is shipping the first phone build of its unified Windows 10 Maps app in the Technical Preview, following the February hands-on preview build that added interactive notifications and a redesigned Action Center. The notable detail is the supply chain: guided navigation comes from HERE maps while traffic data comes from Bing — Microsoft's own app is a composite of a third-party map provider and an in-house data feed.
That dependency cuts both ways. A year after this launch, HERE dropped support for Windows Phone and Windows 10 entirely, forcing Microsoft to re-anchor its location stack — which it did by partnering with TomTom to expand Azure location services and extending the HERE deal toward connected-car productivity scenarios.
First-order effects
- Windows Insiders testing phone builds get turn-by-turn navigation powered by HERE and Bing-sourced traffic in one native app, replacing whatever per-device map experience preceded it.
- HERE becomes a critical upstream supplier for a platform whose phone install base is still being validated by preview builds — Microsoft's map quality now rides on a partner's continued commitment.
Second-order effects
- When HERE withdrew Windows support in March 2016, Microsoft had no in-house fallback at nav grade and turned to TomTom, folding the relationship into Azure location services rather than rebuilding maps from scratch.
- Bing's traffic layer survives as Microsoft's retained asset even after the HERE exit, giving the company proprietary signal inside an otherwise licensed stack.
Third-order effects
- Mapping on any platform is only as durable as its data license: consumer OS vendors without their own base maps end up as customers of location providers or cloud platforms, and Microsoft's path — HERE, then TomTom-via-Azure — shows consolidation around cloud-delivered location APIs rather than bundled apps.
- For smaller platforms, the episode sets a structural warning: a niche OS cannot count on map suppliers staying once the addressable device base shrinks, so location capability migrates to whoever owns the data infrastructure.
The trend: Location services are migrating from bundled OS map apps to licensed data plus cloud platforms like Azure, with suppliers like HERE and TomTom deciding which operating systems stay viable for navigation.