At Google I/O, Ravi Palanki, Android Place API technical lead and I presented our session titled ‘Understand your Place in this world’. Even if you were not able to attend Google I/O in person, you can now watch our session:
Humans navigate a world made up of places with names, addresses and phone numbers—not lat/long coordinates. The Google Places API enables an app or website to present location data to users in a human-centered fashion. In this session we shared how you can use the Places API to discover your environment. I walked the audience through the main use cases and Places API functionalities, across mobile and web. We also showed off some newly-released mobile widgets, and Ravi did a deep-dive into the benefits of the mobile platform, such as optimization for mobile device battery life and increased device accuracy. This session is a great starting point to learn how the Places API can make all your apps -- not just map-centric ones -- smarter.
With the Google Places API you get data from the same database used by Google Maps and Google+ Local. Places features more than 100 million businesses and points of interest that are updated frequently through owner-verified listings and user-moderated contributions.
- Use the power of mobile to give your users contextual information about where they are, when they’re there with the Places API for Android.
- Search for and retrieve rich information about local businesses and points of interest, available on every screen with the Places API Web Service.
- Add autocomplete to any application, providing type-ahead location-based predictions like the search on Google Maps.
