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Recently I’ve been thinking about the the world of mobile telephony and what it means for maps.  So we’ve had the iPhone since June 2007 and it certainly has exploded consumer expectations for interactive Location Based Services.  For better or worse, the iPhone is now the yardstick against which all new mobile devices and applications are measured.  We’ve also had the interesting (and dramatic) developments with Nokia in the world of mapping.  Firstly, their mobile map applications started in earnest with their Gate5 acquisition in August 2006.  Then of course there was Nokia’s acquisition of Navteq in 2007, a massive investment (or even gamble?) in mapping.  Meanwhile we have had Google Android, a mobile operating system with a location based services (and mapping applications) in its heart.   We are now seeing the first Android phones., so it will be interesting to see how their popularity develops.

So obviously there are many existing developments in the world of mobile mapping.  What has Microsoft been doing?  Customers I work with are often asking me how they can use Microsoft mapping technologies to develop mobile applications.  The answer is: in lots of ways and with lots of different technologies!  I thought it would be useful to do a blog post that summarises all the different ways you can use Microsoft Mapping technologies to develop mobile mapping applications.  So here we go…

Note - This post will be quite long and take a while, so I will keep adding new things to it gradually.

Multimap – Map2Mobile

I thought I would start with the simplest 1st.  Multimap has a technology called Map2Mobile which allows the integration of web mapping applications with mobile devices.  In it’s simplest form a user on www.multimap.com can search for a location and then send a map of this location to their mobile phone:

This is also available within the Multimap API.  See this description of how it works.  This means that Multimap customers can use this to add Map2Mobile functionality to their own mapping applications.  For example 02 have added MAp2Mobile to their storefinder:

This allows users to send a map of the store location to the phone and this in turn helps O2′s conversion rates.

Basically the Map2Mobile technology works by sending a SMS (text message) to the specified phone.  The message contains a link to a WAP page to display the map with a marker for the store etc.  The great thing is that, as this is pretty basic technology, it works on almost any phone these days.

Multimap – Storefinder4Mobile

Storefinder4Mobile is a “where’s my nearest?” service for people on the move.  It allows consumers to search for stores, dealers or other locations by a “known” location (e.g., postal/ZIP code or place name) or be automatically positioned by network cell ID.  An SMS containing location details is sent directly to the consumer’s mobile device.   Consumers can then request a map and additional locations, and zoom in or out.

To see this in action send an SMS to 81066 with the text “Shell”.  This will reply with your nearest Shell Station:

Replying with “shellmap” returns a link to a map:

Clicking on the link brings this map:

Live Search for Mobile

The recently updated Live Search for Mobile allows users to use live search from their mobile device as well us using maps on their mobile.   This includes the ability to find local businesses, restaurants, and shops that are nearby.  You can see ratings and reviews to see what others have said.  It is also possible to click to see additional info such as storefront photos and detail reviews. The new release includes Walking Directions, Collection import and Bird’s Eye photography. 

Virtual Earth Web Services (VEWS)

The relatively new VEWS SOAP based web services really open up the possibilities for easily developing Mobile based map applications.  Of course the full Virtual Earth AJAX map control is not really the right thing for developing mobile applications.  Previously mobile developers has to access VE Map tiles, geocoding, routing and searching in unsupported hacks.  Now they can use VEWS to provide simple, supported ‘lower level’ access to VE via SOAP. 

So for example, a developer can now easily develop a Windows Mobile application using the .Net Compact Framework and call out to VEWS.

See this full MSDN example:  How Do I: Use the Virtual Earth Geocode Web Service on Windows Mobile Devices?

Virtual Earth on the iPhone

It is also possible to develop Virtual Earth applications for the iPhone!  Chris Pendleton has done a couple of great blog posts on this here and here. 

Microsoft Tag, Mobiles and Virtual Earth

Microsoft Tag is a a mobile tagging system which uses tags (similar to 2D bar codes) to allow mobile users to identify things and/or places.  Users can aim their camera phone at a Tag to discover where or what it is. 

Johannes Kebeck has done some great work on creating applications that combine Microsoft TAG and Virtual Earth in a mobile application.  See his blog post on this here.