Necessity may be the mother of invention, but inconvenience can be a muse.

It's what spurred the creators of Dial Directions, now available to Inland cell-phone users, to launch the new service this summer, in hopes of capturing frustrated drivers around the region.

Co-founder Amit Desai said he realized there was a need for a simple directions application last year while house-shopping in Northern California. He felt it should not be something that required a lot of keystrokes or a software download.

"My options were limited to either finding a computer with a Web connection and printing paper directions, using a fold-out map or trying to download complicated mobile applications onto an expensive and complicated smart phone," he said.

He said those options all failed his consumer-friendliness criteria: quick, easy and free.

"I thought there could be a much better way of doing it," Desai said. He eventually left his employer to start Dial Directions.

Oakland-based Dial Directions has offered directions via text message in New York, the San Francisco Bay Area and greater Los Angeles, including the Inland region, since July. To use the technology, one calls 1-347-328-4667 on a cell phone. Dial Directions can't be used with land-line phones.

A voice-recognition answering system asks the callers where they want to go. There are three options, an address, an intersection or a chain business. If the caller chooses a business, the system can find the closest location of many options, ranging from national outfits such as FedEx Kinko's or Enterprise Rent-A-Car to regional chains such as In-N-Out Burger.

After the virtual agent has determined where the caller wants to go (street and city names and addresses the caller gives are repeated), the system promises to send the directions by text message. In a recent test, the text message arrived before the phone call had concluded. Long directions are sent over several text messages.

Dial Directions doesn't charge a fee to use the service, Desai said. The company hopes to make money by attaching ads to the end of the directions text messages. He said that in focus-group trials, consumers have been fairly accepting of the ads, which he called unobtrusive. He said the company has ruled out using audible ads on the calls.

He declined to reveal how many calls the system has received.

For now, Desai said, Dial Directions works only with English, but a Spanish option is coming. He also said the service will be extended nationwide at some point.

Among those interested in seeing further expansion is Rick Kemper, director of wireless technology for the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association, a wireless-industry advocacy group based in Washington. Kemper said there are other ways to get directions on a wireless phone, but "they're primarily text-based and expect you to enter an address much like you would on a computer. Some phones' user interfaces can be cumbersome in relation to voice recognition."

He called Dial Directions a convergence of mapping, wireless devices and voice recognition, blending into a new service.

The telecommunications industry sees hundreds of innovations a year, Kemper said, and many fail. One important factor in Dial Directions' success, he said, could be how quickly it gets together the money and tech savvy to expand the service.

Dial Directions, Kemper said, is an application that could create demand.

"I don't find myself in that situation (needing directions while on the go) more than two or three times a month," he said. "If this service became available, I might become more adventurous. I might not do as much printing the map beforehand."

Reach Rodd Cayton at 951-368-9412 or rcayton@PE.com