Pack a map in the mobile

Few things say “bewildered tourist'' like standing on a pavement, guidebook in hand, as you scan the surroundings for a decent restaurant.

But if you're peering at the screen of a mobile phone instead? Why, you look like you're just sending a text message, even if you're still seeking dining advice, in this case with a free phone programme that finds nearby attractions.

The kind of software that lets you pull off that trick can be traced to two recent developments.

First, phones learnt to find themselves (by GPS); then wireless carriers let other people write software for their phones (giving users an alternative to the carriers' own $10-a-month or Dh36-a-month navigation services).

The most widely used programme is Google Maps (google.com/gmm), available for BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and Palm phones.

In most cases, it quickly fixes your location and can then find nearby businesses by category.

On some phones, it also provides Street View panoramas showing what you would see from a given stretch of sidewalk.

Fine tuning

Google Maps doesn't report much about what people think of the places it finds but many location-aware applications can, most of them available on Apple's iPhone via its “App Store'' icon.

Start with Yelp, which provides an immense database of user-contributed reviews of restaurants, stores and much more. (“Yelpers'' can be remarkably loquacious about subway stations).

But its lengthy restaurant listings need more filtering options and its locals-first advice can leave you guessing about hotels.

Other options

The plainer and perhaps more practical — iWant — lists the closest options in categories such as hotels, chemists and banks.

It lets you choose from multiple review sources. For looking up restaurants alone, UrbanSpoon links to multiple online reviews and offers the giggle-inducing option of shaking the iPhone like a Magic 8 Ball to get a random suggestion.

But it covers only major cities. For example, this summer my wife and I made great use of it in Portland, Oregon, but not in the town of Hood River to the east.

OpenTable has similar coverage limits but it also lets you see which places have tables free.

This fun isn't confined to the iPhone. Google's new Android phone software, running on the T-Mobile G1, allows for the same sort of programmes, accessible via its “Market'' icon.

The best example of its potential so far is a smart programme called Wikitude.

The programme draws on articles from Wikitravel, a vast user-written guide modelled on Wikipedia, and guides you through the G1's camera.

Select its “View in Cam'' option, point the camera in the desired direction and it “annotates'' the scene by labelling local landmarks on screen.

This guidance goes beyond museums and monuments. For example, on a street corner in Arlington, Virginia, Wikitude pointed the way not just to Arlington Cemetery and the Pentagon but also to neighbourhoods and ruins of American civil war forts.