We celebrated our last ‘Code the Road’ Europe stop in London where the team got an early start in our Code Lab building an Android app using the Google Maps APIs.
Ed Boiling, Maps API sales engineer, led the Code Lab workshop where developers created an Android application using the Google Maps Android API and connected it to a Google Cloud Platform datastore. The Code Lab covered concepts including using Android Studio, creating a Google Maps activity, drawing data on the map, capturing the user's location, and adding location based rules to control the application logic. It also introduced the developers to Google Cloud Platform via the Cloud Endpoints integration in Android studio, allowing them to easily add and deploy a Google App Engine based API and datastore for their application to use.
This was not before trying out a Code the Road favorite—Pegman Skydiving. Using a camera, Maps APIs, and your arms the program can detect how you might look skydiving over a specific locale.
In the afternoon Kerstin Pittl, a lead engineer for Maps APIs from OniGroup, discussed how companies can use the “blue dot” on Google Maps in their applications and how partners can help them integrate it into their map.
Pittl was followed by Dan Hubert, the founder of Appyparking. Appyparking helps drivers across the United Kingdom understand parking regulations and find open parking spaces. The app color codes parking spots to show drivers where there’s free parking, where restrictions apply and where special types of spaces – such as electric-car charging and motorbike spots – are located.

We’re already planning our next roadtrip. We hope to see you at one of our future Code the Road stops!

Posted by Michael St. Germain, Associate Product Marketing Manager, Google Maps APIs