Navigation and location-based services are among the most important drivers of smartphone usage, and Google may be looking to dominate this market as it does search, with a free application. As with its forays into web telephony and other apps, it will be looking to disrupt the operator branded services and the paid-for offerings from specialist players. With its Maps already a fixture on phones, it will also be gunning for Nokia’s Navteq unit, for which the Finn paid a huge $8.1bn in its biggest gamble on web services to date. According to Forbes, Google is developing a free mobile navigation app to rival premium products from specialists. This would hardly be a surprise ‘ it has been rumored as…