Mobile adoption continues to grow and location-aware apps are becoming a big part of everyday life.  On your device you can find a fitness app measuring how far you’ve walked, transit apps notifying you when the next bus arrives, and driving apps to help you find the best route home. The Google Maps APIs have been a key part of apps that are changing the way you exercise, commute and live.

To demonstrate the benefits that Roads API can provide for your app, we've partnered with Dash, a connected driving app. Dash provides real-time diagnostics for automobiles so that drivers can save time and money by driving better and more intelligently. One key challenge for Dash was not being able to collect enough information points to draw visually stunning lines on the map without creating a drain on the device’s battery. With the Roads API, Dash can sample less frequently and still get accurate and beautiful visualizations of routes, even on roads that are curvy or otherwise hard to visualize with less than optimal sample rates.

Let’s take a look at how the Roads API snap-to-road feature is improving the Dash app. You can see in the first app screenshot below, without the Roads API, the route doesn’t make sense unless you’re jumping a few medians, driving through the woods, and somehow not getting pulled over for ignoring basic traffic rules. The second app screenshot shows the same route after the Roads API had been implemented into Dash and is a much smoother, more accurate route.

The Dash team says they are “pretty psyched” the Roads API has optimized their visualizations and we’re pretty psyched they are happy with the result. To learn more about the Roads API, please take a look at our DevByte video, check out the documentation or download the updated client libraries  to get started.

Snap-to-road is available for free with a limit of 2500 queries per day. For the Google Maps API paid developer, the Roads API also gives you access to speed limit data from all over the world. Simply contact your account manager to get the Roads API enabled for your account. If you do not know who your account manager is, you can find it out by filing a non-technical case in the support portal. To get in touch with us to become a Google Maps paid customer, please reach out here.

Posted by Elena Kelareva, Product Manager, Google Maps APIs

Posted by Dave Overstrom, Google Maps Program Manager

Editor’s Note: Today’s post is designed to answer frequently asked questions about using Google Maps APIs. For tips on how to deploy Google’s mapping tools, read more from Dave Overstrom, Program Manager at Google.

Google Maps APIs enable you to create familiar and engaging location-based applications. Over the past decade, we’ve worked hard to make Google Maps simple and easy to use for consumers, and we think the same experience should hold true when integrating our mapping APIs. That’s why we’re excited to announce the Google Maps API checker, a new Chrome extension designed to help deploy our licensed Google Maps APIs.

The checker allows you to determine if your website is properly implementing Google’s mapping APIs, such as the Google Maps Javascript, Static Maps and Street View Image APIs. Ideal for partners and developers, the tool shows information about common API watchpoints and pitfalls, including issues related to your client ID, digitally signing a static maps request, and optimizing your quota. No longer will you need to sift through code or the Javascript console to identify implementation problems. You can see technical issues immediately by clicking an icon in the browser's address bar.
If you’re a Google Maps customer, we hope this new extension will make implementing Google Maps APIs an even better experience. Enjoy!

Posted by Scott Loarie, Co-Director, iNaturalist.org, California Academy of Sciences

Editor’s note: Since the launch of Google Maps ten years ago, maps have come a long way. To celebrate a decade of map innovation, we’re highlighting unique maps built by our developer community. Hear from Scott Loarie at iNaturalist.org and see how they’re using Google Maps APIs to create a community-driven conservation map.

At the California Academy of Sciences, we’re using maps to help people discover plant and animal life from around the world on iNaturalist.org. To help people share and learn about nature across the globe, we’re bringing those experiences directly to our visitors using Google Maps APIs.


Our virtual conservation effort is powered primarily by the Google Maps JavaScript API and Google Maps Android API, which render maps for our website and Android mobile app. And to make our maps even more engaging and easy to use, we rely on other APIs, too. We use the Static Maps API to display map locations without having to display locations in a lightweight manner, and the Street View Image API to show 360-degree views of the Galapagos Islands. The Geocoding API enables us to turn place names into coordinates, letting people ‘add an observation’ to our map and participate in our site.

Using the Google Maps APIs, we can create multi-layered maps that are both educational for consumers and useful for researchers. Our app automatically geotags photos as they’re uploaded and displays them based on GPS coordinates. Additionally, we pull data from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) about locations of species and display them in KML format using polygons on the Google Map. Seeing photos and data on the map lets researchers compare observations from multiple sources and determine numbers and types of species in a particular area.

1. Transit directions will now return fare information where available, same as the Google Maps Android app. In Distance Matrix API, this enables developers to find routes that minimize either the travel time or the fare.
2. Transit directions now accept transit options, same as the Google Maps Android app. Options include mode preferences (transit_mode=train|tram|subway|bus) as well as routing preferences (transit_routing_preference=less_walking or fewer_transfers).
3. Developers can now set departure_time=now instead of specifying a timestamp. The departure_time parameter is now optional and will default to departure_time if not specified.

The Google Maps API provides a rich set of web services that allow developers to integrate them into connected applications. We've been making developers lives easier by making these services available in the JavaScript Maps API as tested code that simplifies interfacing with mapping services for quite a while now.

Recognizing that developers use different languages for their applications, we've developed client libraries to make integration of Maps API services easier, and we're happy to announce availability of libraries for both Java and Python. The bottom line is fewer lines of code are needed to integrate the Maps APIs, and let's face it, less code means less work which means faster time to market!

The libraries support these Maps API services:

• Directions API
• Distance Matrix API
• Elevation API
• Geocoding API
• Time Zone API

Here's an example of how you'd use the Geocoding API with the Java client library:

// Replace the API key below with a valid API key.
GeoApiContext context = new GeoApiContext().setApiKey("AIza...");
GeocodingResult[] results =  GeocodingApi.geocode(context,
    "1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043").await();
System.out.println(results[0].formattedAddress);

By taking advantage of these client libraries, developers will save time integrating these services. Developing robust code that handle all the details of interfacing to these services can be left to our client libraries whilst the developer can concentrate on value added features in their applications.

Depending on which language you're using, some of the best features of the libraries include:

• Simple interface
  • enables you to get started quickly and easily
• Authenticated requests
  • handles the nitty-gritty of authentication keys and enterprise signing
• Retry on failure
  • transparently deals with intermittent connection to server errors
• Rate limiting
  • throttles the number of requests to the Maps API for quota management
• Native objects
  • the interfaces are in your host language so no bridging code needed
• Asynchronous or synchronous
  • you choose what style of interface to use, as we support both
• Open source
  • easy to check out, understand, and contribute to if you like

If you're a Java developer, head on over to our github repository to get the code and browse the examples. If you develop in Python you'll find the Python specific code and samples here.

We've built these libraries to save you time and make it even easier to put Maps API services into your next world-changing app, let us know if you like them!

Posted by Alex Danilo, Developer Advocate

Over six years ago we introduced the Google Earth API, enabling developers to build rich 3D mapping applications in the browser, using JavaScript. And over the years, developers have built quite a number of fascinating applications.

However, the Earth API is built on a technology called the NPAPI plugin framework, and recently, for security reasons, both Chrome and Firefox have announced they’re removing support for this framework. These security reasons, combined with dwindling cross-platform support (particularly on mobile devices), had made building applications that leverage the Earth API untenable for developers.

Therefore, after careful consideration, we have decided to retire the Google Earth API. Per our deprecation policy, the API will be supported until one year from today and will be turned off on December 12, 2015.

For the duration of the deprecation period, the set of supported browsers is as follows. Because of the recent Chrome and Firefox announcements, support on those browsers extends only to the latest browser version that supports NPAPI.

• Microsoft Windows (XP, Vista, 7, and 8)
• Google Chrome 5.0-39.0 (32-bit)
• Internet Explorer 7-9, and 10-11 with Compatibility View (32-bit) (Note that the Windows 8 browsing mode with Internet Explorer does not support plugins.)
• Firefox 11.0-34.0
• Apple Mac OS X 10.6 or later (any Intel Mac)
• Google Chrome 5.0-39.0 (32-bit)
• Safari 3.1+
• Firefox 11.0-34

Google Earth has a proud legacy, which continues with the new Google Earth for Android, powered by a brand new renderer. 3D is in our blood, and while we can’t announce anything just now, we look forward to sharing more exciting product news in the future.

Posted by Ken Hoetmer, Product Manager, Google Maps APIs

Several months back we released a new Google Maps Embed API which enables developers to generate HTML snippets that embed Google Maps within their own website. At that time, the astute reader may have noticed that Street View and Photospheres were missing. Until now!

Today, we added the ability to easily embed the Street View and Photo Sphere images you find in Google Maps and we’re also enabling the same capabilities programmatically in the Google Maps Embed API. These embeds use the new imagery viewer technology that powers Street View in the new Google Maps.

Embedding a Street View or Photo Sphere works similarly to the Street View Service in Google Maps JavaScript API v3 - specify a lat/lng or panorama ID to pick your location, plus heading and pitch to determine direction of the scene and angle of the camera.

Lastly, since this feature is part of the Google Maps Embed API, embedded Street View panoramas are also free of usage limits. So go forth and embed!

Posted by Ken Hoetmer, Product Manager, Google Maps APIs

Cross-posted from Google Developers Blog

Posted by Ian Lake, Developer Advocate

To offer more seamless integration of Google products within your app, we’re excited to start the rollout of the latest version of Google Play services.

Google Play services 6.5 includes new features in Google Maps, Google Drive and Google Wallet as well as the recently launched Google Fit API. We are also providing developers with more granular control over which Google Play services APIs your app depends on to help you maintain a lean app.

Google Maps

We’re making it easier to get directions to places from your app! The Google Maps Android API now offers a map toolbar to let users open Google Maps and immediately get directions and turn by turn navigation to the selected marker. This map toolbar will show by default when you compile against Google Play services 6.5.


In addition, there is also a new ‘lite mode’ map option, ideal for situations where you want to provide a number of smaller maps, or a map that is so small that meaningful interaction is impractical, such as a thumbnail in a list. A lite mode map is a bitmap image of a map at a specified location and zoom level.

In lite mode, markers and shapes are drawn client-side on top of the static image, so you still have full control over them. Lite mode supports all of the map types, the My Location layer, and a subset of the functionality of a fully-interactive map. Users can tap on the map to launch Google Maps when they need more details.

The Google Maps Android API also exposes a new getMapAsync(OnMapReadyCallback) method to MapFragment and MapView which will notify you exactly when the map is ready. This serves as a replacement for the now deprecated getMap() method.

We’re also exposing the Google Maps for Android app intents available to your apps including displaying the map, searching, starting turn by turn navigation, and opening Street View so you can build upon the familiar and powerful maps already available on the device.

Drive

You can now add both public and application private custom file properties to a Drive file which can be used to build very efficient search queries and allow apps to save information which is guaranteed to persist across editing by other apps.

We’ve also made it even easier to make syncing your files to Drive both user and battery friendly with the ability to control when files are uploaded by network type or charging status and cancel pending uploads.

Google Wallet

In addition to the existing ‘Buy with Google’ button available to quickly purchase goods & services using Google Wallet, this release adds a ‘Donate with Google’ button for providing the same ease of use in collecting donations.

Google Fit

The Google Fit SDK was recently officially released as part of Google Play services and can be used to super-charge your fitness apps with a simple API for working with sensors, recording activity data, and reading the user’s aggregated fitness data.

In this release, we’ve made it easier for developers to add activity segments (predefined time periods of running, walking, cycling, etc) when inserting sessions, making it easy to support pauses or multiple activity type workouts. We’ll also be adding additional samples to help kick-start your Google Fit integration.

Granular Dependency Management

As we’ve continued to add more APIs across the wide range of Google services, it can be hard to maintain a lean app, particularly if you're only using a portion of the available APIs. Now with Google Play services 6.5, you’ll be able to depend only on a minimal common library and the exact APIs your app needs. This makes it very lightweight to get started with Google Play services.

SDK Coming Soon!

We’ll be rolling out Google Play services 6.5 over the next few days, and we’ll update this blog post, publish the documentation, and make the SDK available once the rollout completes.

To learn more about Google Play services and the APIs available to you through it, visit the Google Play Services section on the Android Developer site.

Today we posted a few minor updates to the Google Maps / Google Earth APIs Terms of Service. These changes should impact very few developers and customers, but are designed to provide clarification for recently launched advertising-supported and connected APIs.

The changes are broadly as follows:

Advertising

• Similar to the Adsense Terms and Conditions, if you use an API that serves ads, you grant Google the right to index your site for the purpose of better ad targeting.
• A restriction on using Places API results to create or augment an advertising product.

Sign-in and cookies

• A restriction on obscuring the Google sign-in button, similar to the existing restriction on obscuring the Google logo and copyright notice.
• A clause that states certain APIs use cookies, and that developers using these APIs may be required by law to disclose such on their own site.

Other changes

• Clarifications on what sorts of use cases constitute asset tracking.
• Removal of references to specific data providers.

We continue to believe in providing a set of tools that help you meet your maps and location related goals, and these updates are designed to make the terms of our offering more clear and sustainable. We look forward to seeing what you build next!

Posted by Ken Hoetmer, Product Manager, Google Maps APIs