AOL improves mobile service

The company hopes to attract more of the wireless Internet user market already tapped into by Google, Yahoo! and MSN, among others.

Improved features include an enhanced keyword search and localized CityGuide, Moviefone and Mapquest Navigator for mobile users.

These improvements come less than a year after AOL introduced its portal of mobile Internet services in July 2005 with AIM instant messaging, AOL Mail, AOL Pictures, news content and Yellow Pages.

AOL also announced it would be extending its partnership with Sprint Nextel to allow all of Sprint's subscribers access to the mobile services.

According to the recent AP-AOL-Pew Research Center "Mobile Lifestyle Survey" of 1,286 users nationwide, mobile-phone users said they would consider mobile mapping, e-mail, search, instant messaging and video as "must-haves" in the next phone they purchased.

Among the results:

-- 52 percent of adults said they kept their cell phone on all day;

-- 40 percent aged 18-29 were likely to drop their landline;

-- 30 percent of adults want to browse the Internet via mobile;

-- 29 percent say they "could not live" without their cell phone.

Copyright 2006 by United Press International