Maps APIs Blog
The Google Maps APIs blog covers all aspects of Google Maps APIs, including product launches, updates and developer stories
Google Places API for iOS & Google Maps SDK for iOS are now in separate CocoaPods
Monday, July 25, 2016
In today’s release, the Google Places API for iOS 2.0 and the Google Maps SDK for iOS 2.0 are now in separate CocoaPods. For developers who only use the Google Places API for iOS, this will significantly reduce the binary size of their app.
What does this mean for me? What do I have to do?
Nothing immediately for your current implementation, but we strongly suggest that you upgrade within the next year to the new Google Maps SDK for iOS 2.0 and Google Places API for iOS 2.0. The Google Maps for iOS SDK Version 1.x will become unsupported in one year’s time.
If you are using the Standard Plan Google Maps SDK for iOS 1.x, and haven’t specified a version in your podfile, you will be automatically upgraded to the new Google Maps SDK for iOS 2.0 when you run ‘pod update’. If you use any Places functionality, we’ve created this
migration guide for the Places API
to step you through the process of migrating to the new Google Places API for iOS 2.0.
In addition, we’ve documented how to extract all the frameworks (
Maps
,
Places
) from the relevant CocoaPods so you can manually include the SDKs in your project rather than using CocoaPods if you wish. [
Issue 8856
]
What does this mean for Premium Plan Maps SDK customers?
There is no longer a separate Google Maps Premium Plan SDK. Instead it has been replaced with the new streamlined
Google Maps SDK for iOS 2.0
for both Standard and Premium Plan developers.
We’ve created a
Premium Plan migration guide
that will step you through the process of migrating to the new Google Maps SDK for iOS 2.0. We’ve also documented how to
extract the frameworks
from the CocoaPods so you can manually include the SDKs in your project if you’d prefer that. Your Enterprise Maps key will continue to work, as will your Premium Plan.
Please note:
The Google Maps SDK for iOS Premium Plan SDK 1.13.2 (current version) will be supported for one year during which time we suggest you upgrade to the new streamlined Google Maps SDK for iOS 2.0.
Take a look at our
release notes
and start using version 2.0 today!
Posted by Megan Boundey, Product Manager, Google Maps Mobile APIs
I/O session: Location and Proximity Superpowers: Eddystone + Google Beacon Platform
Monday, July 25, 2016
Bluetooth beacons mark important places and objects in a way that your phone understands. Last year, we introduced the Google beacon platform including Eddystone, Nearby Messages and the Proximity Beacon API that helps developers build beacon-powered proximity and location features in their apps.
Since then, we’ve learned that when deployment of physical infrastructure is involved, it’s important to get the best possible value from your investment. That’s why the Google beacon platform works differently from the traditional approach.
We don’t think of beacons as only pointing to a single feature in an app, or a single web resource. Instead, the Google beacon platform enables extensible location infrastructure that you can manage through your Google Developer project and reuse many times. Each beacon can take part in several different interactions: through your app, through other developers’ apps, through Google services, and the web. All of this functionality works transparently across Eddystone-UID and
Eddystone-EID
-- because using our APIs means you never have to think about monitoring for the individual bytes that a beacon is broadcasting.
For example, we’re excited that the City of Amsterdam has adopted Eddystone and the newly released
publicly visible namespace
feature for the foundation of their
open beacon network
. Or, through
Nearby Notifications
, Eddystone and the Google beacon platform enable explorers of the BFG Dream Jar Trail to discover cloud-updateable content in
Dream Jars across London
.
To make getting started as easy as possible we’ve provided a set of tools to help developers, including links to
beacon manufacturers
that can help you with Eddystone, Beacon Tools (for
Android
and
iOS
), the
Beacon Dashboard
, a
codelab
and of course our
documentation
. And, if you were not able to attend Google I/O in person this year, you can watch my session, Location and Proximity Superpowers: Eddystone + Google Beacon Platform:
We can’t wait to see what you build!
About Peter:
I am a Product Manager for the Google beacon platform, including the open beacon format Eddystone, and Google's cloud services that integrate beacon technology with first and third party apps. When I’m not working at Google I enjoy taking my dog, Oscar, for walks on Hampstead Heath.
Announcing marker clustering in the Google Maps SDK for iOS Utility Library
Monday, July 18, 2016
Today we’ve added
marker clustering
to the
Google Maps SDK for iOS Utility Library
! This much-requested feature is now available for
iOS
in addition to
Android
and
JavaScript
.
Do you ever feel that your map just has too many markers on it, making it feel cluttered and hard to comprehend? Or, perhaps you want to show where the popular restaurants are in your city, but you still want your map to look clean?
Marker clustering supports you in doing this. As the zoom levels of the map change, you can aggregate markers, indicating clearly to your users exactly where those popular restaurants are located. As your user zooms in, the markers progressively split out until all of the individual markers are displayed.
Using the new marker clustering feature in the Google Maps SDK for iOS Utility Library is an easy 4 step process:
Add ‘Google-Maps-iOS-Utils’ to your Podfile
Instantiate the
GMUClusterManager
Implement the
GMUClusterItem
protocol for your marker objects
Add the marker objects to the cluster manager
We provide the default algorithm, renderer and icon generator to support you in doing this. In addition, you can also fully customize each of these by extending the default implementations, or by providing your own implementation of these protocols:
GMUClusterAlgorithm
,
GMUClusterRenderer
,
GMUClusterIconGenerator
.
Take a look at the
documentation
and
demo samples
, and start using marker clustering in the
Google Maps SDK for iOS Utility Library
today!
Posted by Megan Boundey, Product Manager, Google Maps Mobile APIs
I/O session live: Building geo services that scale
Thursday, July 14, 2016
Posted by Laurence Moroney, Developer Advocate at Google
While at Google I/O, l had the opportunity to present the session ‘Building geo services that scale’. I’m pleased to share it more broadly for those of you who were not able to be there in person:
Building geo services that scale
Not all map and geo applications run entirely on your mobile device. Perhaps you want to protect your keys or other API access data from reverse engineering by putting them in the cloud, or you have custom business logic that you run on your server that you don't want to distribute via mobile. To protect your keys and API access data you'll need to operate some kind of service. In this session you'll learn how to build that service on the Google Cloud Platform and consume it in a mobile application that uses the Google Maps APIs.
About Laurence:
I am a Developer Advocate at Google, working on mobile services, specializing in cross-platform developer technologies. As the host of 'Coffee with a Googler' on the Google Developers channel I’m able to meet with some of those most creative and inspiring developers at Google and learn about the projects they’re leading. When I’m not Googling, I’m involved in many things, including working on the revival comics for the Stargate TV shows, and enjoying the geek cred that this brings.
Behind the Australian Elections Map: Mapping democracy in real-time
Friday, July 1, 2016
It's elections time in Australia! With 94% of eligible Australians registered to vote, there will be close to 15 million participants this year.
Googlers in the Sydney office were recently chatting about the upcoming election and realized we all had similar questions: what were the results last cycle, where are the closest polling stations, and where do we look for real-time results on election day? Friends and family were asking the same questions, so we decided to build a solution using
Google Maps APIs
,
Firebase
,
Google App Engine
,
Google Cloud Compute
,
Angular 2
,
the Google Translation Toolkit
and Go.
The aim of
the election map
was to provide all the information that Australians would need to participate in the voting process. We wanted to cover pre-, mid- and post-election needs, including:
A polling place locator with searchable addresses, suburbs, and electorates
Directions and navigation to the polling places, accessible via the election map
Real-time election results once polling has closed and counting has started
The ability to share and embed maps.
UX mockup: map and fake election results using testing data
The pre-election map
displays static electorate data, polling booths and ballot papers. It also indicates who won the electorate in the last 2013 election. To do this, we sourced 2013 election data from the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) and stored it in a Go application intended for Google App Engine so that it could be served to the website frontend. The AEC provided us with data about electorate boundaries and polling place locations.
The website frontend was built using Angular 2 and we've used several open source projects, including
GDAL
,
mapshaper
and a
point clustering library
. These libraries allowed us to send only the required details for a user's viewport, while keeping data usage reasonably low and reducing visual noise.
Polling location information with address and directions intent
Day-of website visitors
will have the ability to search for polling stations and learn about what services are available at each location (accessibility,
sausage sizzle
and/or cake stand). We sourced the sausage sizzle and cake stand data from
Democracy Sausage
and
Snagvotes
. We used the polling place ID to match these to the AEC polling place identifiers. We built a small Google Compute Engine app which sources the data from our sausage sizzle data sources and broadcasts it out to our live web application using
Firebase Realtime Database
.
Autocomplete searches for polling locations
To enable the search functionality, we use two different services in parallel. We first attempt to match the search query against the electorate list on the client. We also use the
Google Maps Javascript API Places Library
with
Autocomplete
to provide suggestions of what users might be searching for, including suburbs, places of interest and addresses. This gives our users the ability to select recommendations instead of having to type full queries.
Voters also need to plan their trip to the polling booths. We relied on Google Maps' existing real-time traffic information and turn-by-turn directions to provide directions functionality.
After 6pm on election night
and when votes begin to be counted, we will switch the site to show real time election results. To do this, again we are using the
AEC data
feed and
Firebase Realtime Database
.
To make it really easy for people to visualize the elections results we employed a hemicycle (half donut circle) in the left sidebar to display real-time results. We also added "share" and "embed" features so people and media can easily share information about the election.
This project was put together by a cross-functional group of Google volunteers including software engineers, UX Designers, product managers and the legal and marketing teams. We'll all be voting on July 2nd, cake in hand. See you at the polls!
About Taylah:
I am an Associate Product Manager at Google’s Sydney office where I work on Google Maps for Android Auto. I love working on Google Maps as you get to help millions of people explore the world every day. When I’m not at work, I love exploring beautiful places, shopping in thrift stores, painting and spending time with my family and friends.
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