Mapping with Google APIs in Android
Conclusion
After this introduction, you are probably very excited to experiment with the mapping software and perhaps add in your own features. The entire software package is available for download from the references and you can simply import the project into Eclipse.
Android's mapping APIs are simple to use and yet powerful, with direct access to Google's already popular tools. As Android continues to grow with more advanced APIs, I believe more map features will be ported to this platform as well. Here are what I can think of if you would like to give it a try:
- If you are an avid user of Google Maps, I am sure you will like its style of a draggable tool bar to control the map zooming and panning. You can go ahead and model after that user interface and functionalities. It will be an excellent addition.
- What about adding an address search functionality, just like Google Maps can do through the web? Parsing the search results is really the key to this feature.
- Usually, GPS needs a little while to initialize when it is taken to a new location, so you might get an ANR dialog (Application Not Responding) if the wait is longer than approximately five seconds. To make your software execute smoothly without any system interruption, you should create a child thread for this purpose and allow it to communicate with the main thread through a message handling scheme.
References
- Download and save the entire software project
- Android - An Open Handset Alliance Project at http://code.google.com/android/
- Android Development Community at http://www.anddev.org
- Androidlet at http://www.androidlet.com
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YahooBuzzChunyen Liu has been with the engineering department at a world's leading GPS company for a while. Some of his applications were among winners at programming contests administered by SUN, ACM, and IBM. He also had co-authored U.S. patents and written articles for various publishers. He holds advanced degrees in computer science and operates a hobby site called The J Maker. On the non-technical side, he is a tournament-rated table tennis player, certified umpire, and certified coach of USA Table Tennis.
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