Location-based services enabler TeleNav has announced its TeleNav Connect and TeleNav Share APIs, which will enable developers to integrate features such as turn-by-turn navigation and location sharing into mobile and web applications. TeleNav Connect is an app-to-app API which enables developers to launch a TeleNav service from within another application, for example enabling a restaurant reviews app to include a “drive to” feature – as long as the user is a TeleNav subscriber. TeleNav Share is intended to enable users to send an address from a website or mobile application directly to a mobile phone, by entering the phone number; for TeleNav subscribers, it is then stored in the “favourites” menu when the app is launched.

The company says its user base includes more than 17 million subscribers, and that the newly-released APIs enable seamless navigation and location sharing “across all major mobile operating systems on hundreds of devices supported by the networks of TeleNav’s US carrier partners, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and US Cellular, as well as a limited number of devices on the Verizon network.” This cross-platform, multi-operator, and device-wide support allows developers to “effortlessly reach millions of users and deliver a consistent experience regardless of a user’s device or carrier.”

“When a developer wants to help their users drive to or share a location, they won’t have to ask themselves which operating systems they can and can’t support. With the TeleNav Developer Platform, they have one simple solution to deliver a consistent user experience whether they develop their app for Android, BlackBerry, iPhone, Windows Phone 7, or any other major mobile platform,” says Dariusz Paczuski, VP of marketing for the company.

TeleNav says its Developer Platform, which includes TeleNav Connect and TeleNav Share, provides developers with a variety of tools designed to make the integration of APIs into applications “quick and simple.” It has also launched a developer portal to provide comprehensive information and documentation for implementing the APIs, while also providing a help forum and guides.

In September 2010, TeleNav launched a location-based advertising platform, enabling advertisers to target ad users based on their position and the context of the search, with “action-based metrics” such as a “drive-to-rate” which measures how many people launched navigation services to locate advertisers.