Free Amazon Fire Phone App From MapQuest

MapQuest, Inc., has launched an enhanced device-specific navigation app optimized for the Amazon Fire phone available today. The free app provides a customized experience leveraging the Fire phone’s Dynamic Perspective functionality including tilt-activated menus, layer bars and panels.
“Working on Amazon’s Fire phone was a refreshing development ecosystem, providing a unified vision for the MapQuest team to create an app that operates more quickly than many other platforms,” said Brian McMahon, general manager, MapQuest. “MapQuest’s free apps and experiences are agnostic across all devices, which is great for our more than 40 million users who have been with us for years and are excited to try Amazon’s new phone.”

MapQuest’s Navigation Apps
MapQuest’s personalized navigation experience has long been touted as both easy-to-use and better at connecting people to the maps and routes that shape their everyday lives. Today’s additional features add to the recent updates MapQuest incorporated into its mobile navigation apps for the Amazon Appstore, including:

• NEW! – Tilt-activated menus beautifully engineered for Fire phone’s unique panels
• NEW! – Layers bar relocation under widget for better consumer experience on Fire device
• NEW! – 3-D logo icon for better legibility on Fire phone’s screen
• NEW! – More customization from map icon to specific navigation options (last location, home, work)
• High-resolution vector maps: Beautifully designed maps offer improved quality and resolution, enhanced zoom features and new cartography
• New interactive map layers and customizable category buttons: These features make finding nearby business and popular locations quick and easy
• An industry-first ETA status bar: A status bar informs users of time and distance to their destination, as well as anticipated in-route traffic
• Advanced navigation features: Voice-guided, turn-by-turn navigation and real-time traffic re-routing
• One-click point of interest and location sharing: Send location or destination information out via social media, SMS or e-mail

“MapQuest has innovated using Fire phone’s unique capabilities to offer customers a new kind of experience for people on the go,” said Steve Rabuchin, Vice President, Amazon Appstore. “We’re thrilled that MapQuest has created an app for Fire phone. We think customers are going to love the experience.”

To download MapQuest’s free navigation apps and to select a favorite team experience, visit the Amazon Appstore to get started.

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MapQuest 4 Mobile on Apple App Store

MapQuest today announced the availability of MapQuest 4 Mobile for iPhone and iPod touch on the App Store. This free mobile application represents a leap forward in how people interact with maps, directions and local search on their iPhone or iPod touch.

MapQuest 4 Mobile is the next evolution of maps and directions on the iPhone and iPod touch, offering a set of features that simplify the mobile mapping and directions experience. The app enables direct connection with web-based mapping so users who have saved maps and directions to their My Places account on the MapQuest.com site can access them directly via the app. This unique feature allows users to plan their trips on their computer and easily access their maps and directions from their iPhone or iPod touch while on the go.

MapQuest has also created a place carousel for the app, an easy option for people to conduct one-click local category searches and for businesses to promote their brands. The place carousel features icons, called ‘place widgets,’ that allow easy, one-tap searching for hotels, movie theaters, gas stations and more, making it easy for users to find leading brands, such as, Walmart, Autozone and Best Western, along their route or near their destination. iPhone and iPod touch users can customize their place carousel with any of the 20+ place widgets available, with more to come in future releases.

“We continually look for ways to make it easier for our guests to find us and are excited to be featured on MapQuest’s new application for iPhone and iPod touch,” said Dorothy Dowling, senior vice president, marketing and sales at Best Western. "MapQuest has already delivered fantastic returns for our Member hotels, and now that people will also be able to locate Best Westerns on MapQuest 4 Mobile, we expect those results to be even stronger. Best Western's integration into the MapQuest app is an important element of our plan to enable guests to book our hotels when, where and how they want to.”

MapQuest 4 Mobile provides several other innovative features such as an easy and intuitive interface that makes the best use of the large display and innovative Multi-Touch technology. Driving directions can be read in landscape or “Max Maneuver” mode in which each maneuver fills the entire screen. Simply “swiping” the screen to the right or left progresses to the next or previous maneuver. For trips that include more than one stop, MapQuest 4 Mobile on iPhone offers multi-point routing and draggable re-ordering capabilities. Users can also customize the icon that represents their location on the map, either with a stock “My Position” icon that is chosen from a list of options or by using their own photos.

The MapQuest 4 Mobile app is available free from Apple’s App Store on iPhone and iPod touch or at www.itunes.com/appstore.

For more information regarding MapQuest 4 Mobile visit http://wireless.mapquest.com.

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My MapQuest, launched

MapQuest announced the launch of My MapQuest, a personalized mapping experience that lets MapQuest.com users save maps or routes and access them anytime from any browser or Internet-enabled mobile device. This latest enhancement to MapQuest.com, delivers on the MapQuest promise of helping users discover: where is it, how do I get there and what’s nearby.

“The launch of My MapQuest continues MapQuest’s commitment to innovation and improving the user’s experience. Our studies have shown that our customers want a personalization feature that includes the ability to save previously searched addresses,” said Christian Dwyer, Senior Vice President and GM, MapQuest. “Giving our users the ability to save not just maps but also their routes sets us apart and extends MapQuest’s commitment to offering users choice and flexibility.”

Users can easily set up an account by using a new or existing AOL Screen Name or OpenID login. My MapQuest users have the ability to configure and retain personal site preferences, such as miles versus kilometers, preferred language, user data such as cell phone numbers (for the Send to Cell feature), make and model of their vehicle, and addresses for friends and family. Users can also take advantage of the recently released Draggable Routes feature by customizing their directions, then saving them to their My MapQuest account.

My MapQuest also introduces an innovative feature that will automatically calculate the estimated fuel cost of a trip, based on the users saved vehicle information, route distance and average gas prices in the route area.

In addition, My MapQuest will soon be available to MapQuest 4 Mobile (MQ4M) BlackBerry users, further extending the MapQuest.com experience to mobile handsets by enabling users to access saved maps and routes via their mobile phones. Users will be able to plan their routes online and take their directions on-the-go. In addition to the currently supported handsets, the MQ4M service will also be available on new handsets including the AT&T BlackBerry Bold, Verizon BlackBerry 8830 and 8330, and T-Mobile BlackBerry 8300, 8800 and 8820, with more models coming soon.

My MapQuest is the latest addition to the new MapQuest experience which includes the recent launches of a new MapQuest.com website; MapQuest Local, a unique set of local features that have been integrated into MapQuest.com; the MapQuest 4 Mobile downloadable application; and an optimized version of MapQuest.com for the iPhone. MapQuest is the leading online mapping site in the U.S., according to the October comScore Media Metrix report.

MapQuest is part of the AOL Network, which relaunched its entire line-up of key vertical channels and commerce sites, and has launched more than a dozen new niche sites to appeal to targeted audiences. As a result, AOL has seen steady growth in unique visitors and page views on its content sites, and a dozen of AOL’s sites are in the top three in their respective categories, according to comScore Media Metrix (October 2008).

For additional information about My MapQuest please visit http://blog.mapquest.com.

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