By RYAN DIONNE
Navionics, a Wareham, Mass.-based electronic cartography and navigation company, launched an iPhone app that turns your phone into a charting tool. The Navionics Mobile lets you view in-depth charts using your GPS position, and allows you to pan and zoom, query chart objects and more. The app also has outdoor and ski trail data so you can navigate while skiing, hiking or biking.
Unfortunately, skiers and boarders won’t reap much benefit from it yet unless they head to Europe. As of now, the application only has ski trail data for resorts in the Alps.
Next year about 150 U.S. ski resorts will be included in the Navionics app as well as snowmobile and ATV routes, according to the company.
Come the first quarter of 2009, U.S. iPhone users can download the app from the iTunes store and start using it to explore.
—Contributor Ryan Dionne is based in Boulder, Colo. He writes a blog on the outdoors and gear at https://explore-it.blog.com
