Google updates Play Services API with new location features for Android apps

Dylan Tweney
Updated
A new feature of Google Play Games lets developers turn Android smartphones and tablets into second-screen controllers.
A new feature of Google Play Games lets developers turn Android smartphones and tablets into second-screen controllers.

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Google is once again updating Google Play Services, its Android application programming interface (API), to add new features for developers. The new version is 7.0.

Google Play Services is the company’s set of features for building apps that connect with Google products such as Maps and Drive. The previous version, Google Play Services 6.5, came out in November 2014.

Screenshot of Google's new Place Picker dialog, in Play Services 7.0
Screenshot of Google's new Place Picker dialog, in Play Services 7.0

Above: Screenshot of Google’s new Place Picker dialog, in Play Services 7.0

The top features in this new API offer tools for developers to add location-friendly aspects to their apps. There’s a new “place picker” dialog that makes it easier for people to select their current location based on the geodata provided by their phone and the database of locations that Google has.

And there’s an enhanced Places API that gives developers access to that location database — including details about specific venues and items within the database — either through Google’s user interface or through their own UI.

Google wrote, “We will be rolling out Google Play services 7.0 over the next few days,” and noted that the software development kit for the new API will be available once that is complete.

Other updates to the API:

  • Google Fit: The company has updated several of the APIs for its fitness-tracking service.

  • Google Mobile Ads: Developers can now integrate data from Google’s AdMob (a mobile advertising network) with Google Analytics.

  • Google Play Games: There’s support for the new Android game features Google announced today, including the ability to connect an Android tablet or smartphone to a nearby TV as a second screen for gameplay — enabling you to use your smartphone as a controller, for instance.

  • App Indexing: Google has simplified this feature, which “lets Google index apps just like websites, enabling Google search results to deep-link directly into your native app.”

Google announced the news on its Android Developers Google+ page, and posted more details on the Android Developers blog.

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