AJAY HEMNANI: Hi everyone.
Today is Thursday, November 5, 2015.
Welcome to the newest episode of "What's
New in Google Maps APIs," where we bring you the latest
and greatest in the Maps API space for our users,
developers, and customers.
I'm Ajay Hemnani.
And I'm part of the Google Maps [? work ?] team
here in our Mountain View office.
And today I'm joined by my colleague, Elena Kelareva, who
is a product manager for our Maps API products
and has worked closely on most of the new features we'll
be talking about today.
Elena, it's good to have you.
ELENA KELAREVA: It's great to be here, Ajay.
So I'm dialing in from the Sydney office
today, which as you can see is very Maps themed.
I'm the product manager for the web maps APIs,
which includes the JavaScript Maps API, static Maps
API, Street View API, as well as all the Web
Services like geocoding directions and roads.
And I'm excited to tell you about a few new features
and new developments on the APIs that we've launched recently.
So there's four things I'll present to you today.
First of all, we just launched a Standard Plan for the Maps APIs
that lets people buy Web Services quota online
with a credit card.
Secondly, we have a new feature in Directions
and Distance Matrix API called Predictive Travel Time,
which lets you improve your applications with the power
of Google's traffic data.
Thirdly, we've just launched the ability
to add labels to markers in the JavaScript Maps API.
And finally, we've launched a refresh of the controls
in the JavaScript Maps API.
AJAY HEMNANI: Awesome.
I really can't wait to get started talking
about these new features.
And I know one thing that will definitely
excite our developers is Standard Plan.
Elena, please tell us more.
ELENA KELAREVA: So the Standard Plan basically
gives developers a simpler purchase
option for web services.
You can just buy online with a credit card
and get started straight away.
For the first time, this also brings Google's premium
features to customers to sign up with a credit card.
So for instance, all developers can now
get access to traffic in Directions and Distance Matrix
API.
So you can find travel times from A
to B with the actual live traffic.
AJAY HEMNANI: Wow.
So that does give our developers a whole new option
to buy additional web service requests.
And it cost $0.50 for an additional 1,000 requests you
said?
ELENA KELAREVA: Yes.
That's right.
If you need very high usage of Web Services,
you may be able to get cheaper pricing with volume discounts.
But the Standard Plan makes getting started much easier
for developers.
And it also lets developers try out the premium features
for a much smaller price.
AJAY HEMNANI: Very cool.
That's indeed great news for our developers.
Now I know you want to tell our viewers about Predictive Travel
Time.
And I'm super excited about this new feature.
I always use Google Maps to check the best route
so that I spend the least amount of time stuck in traffic.
And with Predicted Travel Time, planning
a trip way ahead of time is now going
to be possible for our users.
Elena, please tell us more about this.
ELENA KELAREVA: So the Directions and Distance Matrix
APIs have been used by developers for a long time
to calculate travel times with live traffic.
We've just extended that from just
being available for the very near future
to indefinitely far in the future to help developers
with planning applications.
So even if you're planning deliveries for next week,
you can estimate what-- you get estimates
for what the traffic is likely to be to help you out
with planning.
AJAY HEMNANI: That sounds good.
And so one question I have is, is this
going to be available to the JavaScript API or only
Web Services?
ELENA KELAREVA: Yes.
It's available in both the Web Services and JavaScript API.
So in the JavaScript API, it's currently
available to our premium customers only.
The web services are available to both Premium
and the new Standard Plan customers.
AJAY HEMNANI: That clarifies.
Now how do we deal with the fact that traffic
can vary so much between a good day and not such a good day?
ELENA KELAREVA: So we let developers tell us
what type of traffic model suites their application best.
Obviously because traffic on a good day compared
to traffic on a bad day vary so much,
we let developers choose between whether they
need an optimistic travel time or pessimistic travel
time or a best guess.
Now I might just switch over to the demo
to show you how this works.
So here's a demo of using Distance Matrix to calculate
travel times from Time Square in New York
to five different grocery stores.
Now New York of course gets very varying traffic
between good conditions versus bad conditions.
So I can show you how it works depending
on whether you choose optimistic, pessimistic,
or best guess for travel time.
So in good traffic conditions, the travel distances
to these grocery stores are all a little bit
below the typical travel time.
On the other hand in bad traffic conditions
at 10:00 AM on a Monday, the estimated time
can be as much as double what the typical travel time is.
The best guess traffic model tells you
our most likely estimate of what the travel time will be,
given what we know about the traffic conditions right now.
And given that Monday's still quite a way away,
traffic conditions right now won't
have that much of an influence.
So this will be basically the typical travel time.
So the kinds of situations where you'd use
each of these traffic models.
The pessimistic time might be-- say
you're trying to schedule drivers for a delivery
and you want to make sure your drivers always
have enough time between jobs that they don't run late.
So in that case, you might want to use the pessimistic traffic
estimates to schedule your deliveries to leave enough time
between successive stops.
On the other hand, the optimistic model,
suppose you're building a thermostat application
and you want the thermostat to turn on early enough
so that when the user arrives at home,
the house is at the right temperature.
So you want to use the optimistic travel times
so that even if your user happens to have really, really
good traffic, the house is still at the right temperature
when they arrive.
And the best guess gives you the most likely travel time.
So if you want to give your user an estimate of what
their likely travel time is going to be,
best guess is the traffic model you want to use.
So since Predicted Travel Times is
available even to Standard Plan users in Directions
and Distance Matrix API, any developer,
even if you're not already using Distance and Matrix
and Directions, can sign up immediately online
to use this feature.
Premium plan customers, if you already have access
to Distance Matrix or Directions API,
you just get this automatically.
If you're not currently using Distance Matrix or Directions,
you can contact your account manager to get access.
And take a look at this link to the docks
if you want more information.
AJAY HEMNANI: Thank you, Elena.
Now next on the list is Marker Labels.
This has been available on Google Maps.
And now developers can use the JavaScript API to do the same.
Can you tell us more on this, please?
ELENA KELAREVA: So the Marker Label feature
lets developers add a single letter or a single number
to their markers.
It's a pretty simple feature.
But it's really great for improving
the usability of applications with lots
of markers on a single map.
I'll show you another demo to illustrate this.
So in this demo, basically the markers
indicate the locations of seven of the Google buildings
in Mountain View.
And you can see how it immediately
makes it easier to refer to a particular building.
And you can see-- you can imagine a website having
some text description on the side
explaining what each of these markers refers to.
So if you have a map with really large amounts of markers
and you want to be able to distinguish markers or point
them out to users, marker labels may help wit that.
AJAY HEMNANI: Great.
This looks really cool.
Now developers can use labels to add more meaning
to their markers.
Next new feature you're going to show our viewers
is the new controls, the UI elements
on top of the map that let you switch between map time,
zoom in and out, and of course the Pegman.
Elena, why don't you tell us what's happening with these.
ELENA KELAREVA: So we've just launched an update
to the JavaScript Maps API controls
to give them a more modern look and feel
and to make them more consistent with other Google Maps
products.
The new controls are also more consistent
between mobile and desktop.
And they match the user experience
that users expect these days from Google Maps.
Let me just go to the demo to show you
how the new controls look.
So this demo shows an example of how the new controls will
look on a map.
One example of something that's changed is the zoom control.
Previously it was in the top left corner.
And the zoom control was long and thin
with quite small buttons in the slide up.
Now the zoom controls moved to the bottom right corner.
The buttons are bigger and consistent between desktop
and mobile.
So they're a size that's easier to press on mobile.
And it's also consistent with other Google Maps products.
The Pegman's also changed a bit.
It looks a bit shorter and fatter.
And some of the other controls have also moved around slightly
with change in the look and feel.
So for full details of how the controls have changed,
take a look at the URL in the slides.
AJAY HEMNANI: This is exciting.
And the new controls do look a lot better,
especially the Pegman.
He looks happier I think.
Although, is there a way to opt out?
Let's say you want to test things out
before you deploy this change.
ELENA KELAREVA: Yes.
The old controls are available as an opt out
until August 20 '16.
So the new controls became the default in Version 3.22
of the API.
So currently, that's the experimental version.
It's just about to roll over to become the release
version in mid-November.
So that's when most customers will start
seeing it on their websites.
I'd really encourage all of our viewers
to try out their sites with the new controls sooner
rather than later, in case you decide
you want to make any changes to your site
before the control style changes in the API version
that you're using.
And if you do decide you need to opt out while you make changes
to your site, it's just the one line changed to your site.
So you just add the Google Maps control
style, Azteca parameter.
And there's a bit of a story around
that, Azteca is a type of horse.
And we decided, we decided on the team
that we're going to name things like control parameters
and design styles after various breeds of horses.
AJAY HEMNANI: Thank you so much, Elena.
All these new features look really great.
And just to quickly recap, today we talked about Standard Plan,
giving our developers an alternate way
to commerce with us.
Then we talked about Predictive Travel Time
that users can use to plan their journey ahead of time
with three different options of traffic model.
And finally we talked about updates to the JavaScript API,
giving developers the ability to label their markers and users
to play with our new controls.
Thanks again, Elena and everyone.
This concludes this episode of "What's
New in Google Maps APIs."
Thanks for spending time with us.
And see you in the next episode.
ELENA KELAREVA: Thank you all for watching.
And thanks Ajay for presenting this.