[thelist] Mobile mapping

[Robert O'Rourke]

John Allsopp wrote:
> Hi all
>
> I may be about to develop a mapping application for desktop and mobile 
> devices. My thoughts first went to Google Maps, but it looks like that 
> requires JavaScript and doesn't really work on mobiles. Any thoughts 
> where I should be looking?
>
> I'm not an expert on developing for mobiles. I was trained in WAP/WML 
> but am I right in thinking that's rather irrelevant nowadays? Where 
> should I be looking for info about developing for mobiles? I'm an open 
> source kinda guy spending most of my time in PHP.
>
> Cheers
> J
>
>   

The Google Maps people have put a lot of work into making them useable 
on mobiles, and it works very well every time I've seen it. It's even 
better on a device with GPS as you can track yourself on the map, a good 
way to use a pocket-pc as a sat-nav. I know there are a couple of layers 
of graceful degradation for various mobile browsers judging by the 
differences between a pocket pc and my regular handset (nokia 6233).

You have to download a small (free) app to use the maps on a mobile 
which is why it can work on a variety of mobile web browsers.

I think google is as good a choice as any, but to be honest I don't know 
enough about the competition to be objective about it.

Rob