Darting around Fab Friday

It’s Friday again, you made it through another week! OK, we made it through another week.

I’m actually pretty excited because next week I’m going to Israel. If you’re in Tel Aviv, I’ll be speaking at the GDG on Tuesday the 19th, come and say hi. Pieter Greyling and Kasia Derc-Fenske will be speaking with me, so you’ll get a three-in-one.

On Tuesday, I hosted another Google Maps Shortcut episode, this time on Tiling in the Google Maps SDK for iOS. Check it out.

Next week Brett Morgan will be hosting a Maps Shortcut on using Google Maps with Dart. Be sure to check that out.

That’s all I’ve got this week. Have a great weekend and, as always, happy mapping!

Posted by Mano Marks, Maps Developer Relations Team

Map of the Week: Citymapper Android App

Map of the Week:  Citymapper Android App

Why we like it: Citymapper is a great example of combining Google’s data and basemap with an app developer’s own data and making a slick, useful interface. Citymapper helps Londoners get around by showing them locations of tube stations, bus routes, taxi fares, the status of transit lines, and much more. It’s built on top of the Google Maps Android API v2 and our Directions and Geocoding services.

It all starts with figuring out what you want to do.

From there you can get walking, biking, transit, or taxi directions. It’ll even tell you how many calories you’ll burn, or how much the taxi should cost.

You can also get information on Tube closures.

And play with a rampaging Android.

You can save your favorite lines and stations in the app as well, allowing you to customize your experience. All around, this is a great combination of our maps with highly localized data.

Posted by Mano Marks, Maps Developer Relations Team

Fab Friday is Tiling

It’s Friday, and here’s a quick Fab Friday to take you through the weekend.

This week, the Google Maps Engine team launched the Maps Engine API, which allows users of Maps Engine to programmatically interact with their data. It also allows any developer to interact with data made public by Maps Engine users. Pretty cool!

Also this week, Chris Broadfoot released a Google Maps Shortcut on his Android Maps Utility Library. You can check out his code on Github, and the video here:

Next week, I’ll be doing a Maps Shortcut on Tile Layers in Google Maps SDK for iOS.

That’s all for now, see you next week and happy mapping.

Posted by Mano Marks, Maps Developer Relations Team

Fab Friday is Back!

It’s been a few weeks since the last Fab Friday. A lot has happened since then. Well, actually, Google I/O happened. Plus we launched a visual refresh of the Google Maps JavaScript API v3. And we announced that over a million sites are now using the Google Maps API. And we had updates to both the Google Maps Android API v2 and the Google Maps SDK for iOS. Wow, a lot really has happened.

Right now, over on Google+ we’re doing a series of video highlights from Google I/O. Every day we’re posting a new video. Currently we’re running the Google I/O 2013 Google Maps Mobile playlist.

We've also recorded a couple more Google Maps Developers Live videos since I/O. Last week, Josh Livni presented a Google Maps Shortcut on The Maps API Visual Refresh.

And this week, Brendan Kenny did a Maps Garage episode on Exploring Map Data with Crossfilter, where he demonstrates how to use a Google Map as a type of Crossfilter view, so that selections within histograms or graphs influence what is drawn on the map, while interactions with the map drive what is drawn in the other views.

That’s it for this week, have a great weekend and happy mapping!

Posted by Mano Marks, Maps Developer Relations Team

Map of the Week: Airbnb for Android

M(app) of the Week: Airbnb for Android

Why we like it: In addition to getting a visual and functional refresh and Google Wallet integration, the Airbnb app for Android now includes some advanced map marker features, such as custom marker images and marker clustering.  The Airbnb team added these features to their app using the Google Maps Android API v2.

When searching for a place to stay, each location is displayed on a map with a marker indicating its price per night.  Using custom marker images to show additional information on the map helps users make decisions based on multiple, important variables (e.g. price and location) more rapidly.  With the Maps API, you can create custom markers from bitmaps that you dynamically draw or load over the wire, or from static assets that you package with your application.

The Airbnb app also uses the Projection class to determine which markers would visually overlap, and replaces them with a single cluster marker that shows how many places it represents.  Marker clustering allows developers to control the visual complexity of the map and improve app performance by reducing the number of makers that are displayed simultaneously. As the user interacts with the map, the marker clustering dynamically changes, which is a great experience for exploring the information displayed on the map.

Marker clustering is also a excellent technique for capturing a third important piece of information about places, which is density.  In the above map of San Francisco, you can see that there are a number of Airbnb places listed in the Mission and Noe Valley neighborhoods, which might indicate that these are interesting places to visit and explore (they are!).

If you want to read more about the technical and visual enhancements that the Airbnb team made to their Android app, be sure to visit their Nerd Blog!

Posted by Paul Saxman, Maps Developer Relations Team

Google Maps at I/O: The Videos

It was an exciting year for Maps at Google I/O. Starting with the launch of the new Maps in the keynote, we had a lot going on! Here are some highlights:

1. We announced that Google Maps is now on one million websites, seen by over one billion people every day.
2. The Google Maps JavaScript API v3 got a visual refresh.
3. There were and updates to the Google Maps Android API v2 and the Google Maps SDK for iOS.
4. We had a wild sandbox with a map diving experience, a Mercedes, Google Earth controlled by a Leap Motion controller and viewed with an Oculus Rift and more!
5. 17 sessions and a codelab.

And much more. We’ve put together a playlist so you can check out all the sessions:

Posted by Mano Marks, Maps Developer Relations Team

Map of the Week: Planefinder

Map of the Week: Planefinder.net

Why we like it: Planefinder uses all three Google Maps API platforms, web, Android, and iOS to enable beautiful visualizations of flight routes.

And recently they used the visual refresh to update their map to the latest look and feel.

They use our WeatherLayer to show clouds and weather forecasts, and offer a Styled Map background to make the planes stand out.

The mobile apps use the Google Maps Android API v2 and the Google Maps SDK for iOS.

They use Markers to update the location of the planes, and Polylines to show their routes.

This is a great use of all three platforms for the Google Maps API to show a compelling visualization of planes in flight.

Posted by Mano Marks, Maps Developer Relations Team