One of the most useful applications for a mobile phone is software to help with navigation. Whether you are on the water or on land, the addition of a GPS and a navigation program can turn your phone into a small chartplotter, giving you an onboard backup and a mobile navigation aid for the dinghy or on shore.
Navigation programs include marine specific applications, as well as those designed for use on land. For maximum productivity, you may want more than one installed on your phone. We use both a marine navigation program and a street navigation program, and have found both to be very useful.
In order to run these navigation programs on a mobile phone, you need to make sure you have enough memory to hold the very large chart and map folios. Thankfully, almost every smartphone supports memory cards that can be inserted to expand memory to many gigabytes of space. To store all the NOAA charts for the entire East Coast, for example, takes more than one gigabyte of space. It takes about 3 gigs to store every NOAA chart for the U.S. and its territories. To store all of the maps for every street in the U.S. and Canada, you'll need about 1 gig of storage.
Memory-Map is a mature and full-featured application.
Installing navigation programs to your phone is a snap. Installing the data can be more cumbersome. The files are large and can take multiple attempts. It is not uncommon to have files of 300 megabytes or more, which must be moved to your phone in order to gain access. But that is an exercise in perseverance.
Choosing navigation applications for your mobile phone is similar to choosing software for your computer: it takes a bit of research and reading. Here are some of the most common programs in use, which will help get you started.
MEMORY-MAP
Memory-Map is one of the best known off-road navigation programs for smartphones. It has been on the market for 6 years and is a mature and full-featured application.
Memory-Map runs on Windows Mobile and supports most GPS units. It allows you to plan your route on your smartphone or PC and then use a GPS to track your progress on a map or chart. It keeps tracks of the actual route you took allowing you to compare it with your planned route. Memory-Map supports a variety of cartography, including NOAA charts and USGS topographic maps, with maps covering much of the U.S. and many international locations as well.
The program comes with software for your smartphone and for your PC. To fully utilize all of the features of Memory-Map you will want the software running in both places, because some things, such as converting nautical charts, can only be done on the computer. The software comes in several different flavors targeting specific areas of interest with different prices.
Memory-Map also offers USGS topographic maps, which add utility. Memory-Map Discoverer ($95.00) includes topographic maps for the area you choose. In the U.S., this is typically handled on a per state basis, but New England (ME, MA, VT, NH, RI, CT) and Atlantic (NJ, DE, MD, DC) are sold as bundles. The price for international bundles varies.
Memory-Map Navigator ($99.95) supports NOAA charts, which you must download from the NOAA website and then convert using the PC software. There are no maps or charts included with the software.
Memory-Map Professional ($225.00) has the features of the Navigator version plus AIS ship tracking on the PC, large-format printing and the ability for a programmer to customize the software (with the purchase of 5 licenses). Support for international maps is provided by purchasing ChartKits from Maptech.
The bottom line is that Memory-Map has strong support for both NOAA and USGS topographic maps, although the multi-step conversion process for NOAA charts is somewhat cumbersome. The DVD bundles, which include an external hard drive, are convenient but only include topographic maps and are rather pricey. The entire U.S. is $1,695, while each region is $699 a piece. The performance is fast on almost any smartphone device. Topographic map support provides excellent mapping for hiking and other off-road uses, which can be very nice when you want to find a trail to hike ashore.
ACTIVE CAPTAIN
ActiveCaptain Mobile is a marine navigation product that runs on Windows Mobile and Palm based smartphones. Full disclosure: we developed ActiveCaptain Mobile software after launching our ActiveCaptain website, a visual database of marinas, anchorages, and local knowledge in a wiki-style that allows users to make additions, changes, and deletions. (For a story on how and why we developed ActiveCaptain, see link.)
