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Know where you’re going with your phone’s GPS

By Prince Osuagwu

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 guide, giving information on where to go.

Now, majority of GPS receivers are built into mobile phones, with varying degrees of coverage and user accessibility. Commercial navigation software is available for most 21st century smartphones as well as some Java-enabled phones that allows them to use an internal or external GPS receiver.

Some phones with GPS capability work by assisted GPS and do not function when out of range of their carrier’s cell towers. Others can navigate worldwide with satellite GPS signals as a dedicated portable GPS receiver does, upgrading their operation to A-GPS mode when in range. Still others have a hybrid positioning system that can use other signals when GPS signals are inadequate.

GPS navigation applications for mobile phones include Waze and Google Maps Navigation. Google Maps Navigation included with Android means most smartphone users only need their phone to have a personal navigation assistant. Yet it is also common to see mobile phone users asking for directions irrespective of the powerful phones in their hands, rich with inbuilt GPS.

The unique aspect of a mobile GPS is its ability to answer questions such as  Where am I?, which roads or paths are available to me now?, which roads or paths should I take in order to get to my desired destination?, if some roads are usually busy at this time, what would be a better route to take? And perhaps  where can I get something to eat nearby or where can I get fuel for my vehicle?

Eventually, one of the problems why users carry navigational tools and still ask questions their phones can answer, included the tough techniques involved in setting it up on the mobile phone.

Setting the navigation app
So, setting up navigation on Nokia 5230, for instance, the user first of all needs to set the internet on his phone through the operator and then do the following settings on the phone.

Go to the Menu , Select and click on Maps, Select Tools, Settings and Internet.
When the navigation application is open, go online at start-up: Please set the device to open an internet connection when you open Maps. Thereafter, default access point or Network destination: Select the access point to be used when connecting to the internet.

However, in order to run these navigation programmes 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 high end mobile phone supports memory cards that can be inserted to expand memory to many gigabytes of space.

