The mobile travel application developers Steape has hit the open road as it has partnered with the world’s leading travel publisher, Lonely Planet to develop audio phrasebooks for java-enabled mobile phones.
Steape has worked with Lonely Planet to develop mobile phrasebooks in 10 languages, with translations from English into Mandarin, Vietnamese, Cantonese, German, French, Italian, Japanese, Thai, Czech and Spanish.
Each language contains approximately 200 phrases with both text and audio translations, recorded by their native speakers. Several ther languages are currently in development.
The phrasebooks, which play audio through the phone’s loudspeaker, are available for hundreds of mobile phones running the Java MIDP 2.0 platform with versions also available for Blackberry and Windows Mobile devices.
Chris Boden, Lonely Planet’s director of global business development, says: “Our phrasebooks are extremely popular and an essential travel tool. It is a natural progression for us to make this content available on mobile phones. The applications will be made available through handset manufacturers and mobile network operators worldwide.â€
Marc van Bommel, CEO of Steape comments: “The partnership with Lonely Planet is extremely important for us. Co-operation with such an iconic brand in the travel industry confirms that Steape is on the right track with respect to the quality and usability of our applications.â€
