19 March 2015
Posted by Jen Kovnats Harrington, Product Manager, Google Maps APIs
Originally posted to Google Geo Developers blog
People don’t think of their location in terms of coordinates on a map. They want context on what shops or restaurants they’re at, and what’s around them. To help your apps speak your users’ language, we’re launching the Places API for Android, as well as opening a beta program for the Places API for iOS.
The Places API web service and JavaScript library have been available for some time. By providing native support for Android and iOS devices, you can optimize the mobile experience with the new APIs by taking advantage of the device’s location signals.
The Places APIs for Android and iOS bridge the gap between simple geographic locations expressed as latitude and longitude, and how people associate location with a known place. For example, you wouldn’t tell someone you were born at 25.7918359,-80.2127959. You’d simply say, “I was born in Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, Florida.” The Places API brings the power of Google’s global places database into your app, providing more than 100 million places, like restaurants, local businesses, hotels, museums, and other attractions.
Key features include:
To get started with the Places API for Android, watch this DevByte, check out the developer documentation, and play with the demos. To apply for the Places API for iOS beta program, go here.