It's interesting to observe what people are doing with their mobile phone - for example in public transport. Writing SMS is for sure on the top of the list followed by getting a call. Interesting is the use of the mobile phone as crappy replacement for a - what we by the time called ghetto-blaster. Hanging around in the streets and using the mobile phone to share the latest tunes with friends. If only the "speakers" wouldn't sound so bad when they play at full volume.

Searching local information - phone numbers, upcoming events, location recommendations with maps is a need that quite some companies are investing in. The car navigation producers are making mobile phone versions of their software (solutions are bundled with a GPS receiver). They are good in routing but usually not very good on the content side. Local search providers have been gearing up their mobile offerings - now where a lot of phones with GPRS+ and XHTML/Java run-time infrastructure are in the hands of the users.

At local.ch we made a XHTML version - m.local.ch - of the phone book and event search available in July 2006. The last few months we have been working with Endoxon to create a more advanced solution using J2ME technology. This allows us to do more with the map - zooming & panning - displaying multiple results - read GPS position.

More Screenshots

Although the application still has rough edges - we made a first public release for friends and family to get early feedback. Feel free to join in - visit www.local.ch/mobile for download instructions. Use the built-in feedback form to provide comments.

Other interesting mobile clients you might want to check-out - the Google Mobile Maps or the Nokia Mobile Search (for some S60 phones only).

Technorati Tags: localch mobilemap localsearch

Posted by Cedric on Sunday, October 01, 2006 at 10/01/2006 06:00:00 PM | Permalink