Online mobile navigation for Africa

Garmap for Mobile, announced at the GSMA Mobile World Conference in Barcelona, Spain, on Monday, 16 February, builds on Appello's Wisepilot platform providing navigation on certain GPS-enabled mobile phones.

The application takes up around 1MB of phone memory and can be installed via mobile download.

“With this software, selected GPS-enabled mobile phones can be equipped with the same basic navigation capability utilising the latest mapping data that is available on bigger and more expensive GPS devices," says Andrew McHenry, head of mobile for Avnic Trading, South Africa's official Garmap distributor.

Users can upgrade to the full version of Garmap for Mobile, which gives them access to voice turn-by-turn navigation and other future technologies, such as real time traffic for a monthly fee. Garmap for Mobile relies on a data connection (either GPRS, Edge or 3G/HSDPA) to download maps, points of interest (POIs) and other data for full GPS capability.

Appello and Wisepilot are used in Europe by BT, SFR, T-Mobile, TeliaSonera, Telenor and KPN. The platform can apparently be customised according to the telecom operator's specifications.

Garmap for Mobile will be available in limited beta for mobile network operators from the first quarter of 2009 and will be released to consumers later in 2009.