SOFTWARE development company Apposing has won a contract to design a smartphone app to guide visitors around Chester Zoo.

Liverpool-based Apposing will create the downloadable app for iPhones and other mobile devices to help visitors find their way around and track down their favourite animals.

The zoo chose to work with Apposing to design a new app, rather than simply customising one already used by other zoos.

The zoo’s corporate director, Alasdair McNee, at Chester Zoo, said: “We are keen to enhance the visitor experience and to keep abreast with new technology.

“We looked at a number of off-the- shelf solutions but wanted to be in a position where we could create our own zoo app.

“We are able to do that with Apposing, and from the start we have been impressed with their creativity and approach.”

The app, which is now in development, will help visitors before they arrive at the zoo by giving them directions and information about tickets.

A GPS-enabled map will then show visitors where they are in the zoo and tell them what animals are nearby.

It also includes information and pictures of the animals.

The app will be free to download.

Apposing was set up by Dave Brown and Lee Omar a year ago, and had become one of the city’s most high-profile software developers.

Among its successful apps so far have been a game for professional downhill mountain bike racer Steve Peat, an Echo Arena app for the iPhone and an app that guided people around the works of art at Liverpool Biennial.

It recently secured a deal to create an app for former Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher’s clothing label, Pretty Green.

Apposing’s managing director, Mr Brown, said: “This is obviously a great contract win for us – the colourful and vibrant nature of Chester Zoo has allowed us to propose some exciting and quite different concepts and ideas which the zoo has responded really well to.

“Our first year of trading has been a fantastic one and it’s great to end 2010 on such a high.”

The smartphone app market was created by Apple when it launched its App Store for iPhone owners. Similar stores are now available for other devices.

More than 250,000 apps are now available for the iPhone. In July, Apple said that more than 5bn apps had been downloaded from its App Store.