I first found reference to this in the Australian Emergency Plus app (a very useful app to have on you phone for emergencies) and saw it used in the UK by the driver of a broken-down car to give his location. 

what3words is an app that has partitioned the earth into 3-metre-square areas and given each square a unique three-word ID. For instance “strike.eggs.sake” is the front door of the ABW meeting hall.

As can be seen from the above, when entering an ID, the app gives you the choice of navigation applications. 

Obviously, if you are offline Google maps won’t work. However, the app uses GPS and as, can be seen by a screen shot from my phone, which I put in flight mode, the what3words app is giving me the direction and distance to the target.

Using the app would make it easy to denote meeting points. For instance rather than, we will meet in “Jackville on Jill St near the post office”, just say see you at “fred.pig.cow”.

The app was developed by Chris Sheldrick, who was in the music industry, after he got fed up with his colleagues arriving at the wrong location. So with the help of a friend who was a mathematician the app was created.

What do you think? There is criticism that using 3 words can create errors, but it can’t be worse than reading out strings of numbers! Leave a comment below.

Next read: A Quick Guide To The Larapinta Trail