JUSTIN CHU: Hi.
I'm Justin Chu, product manager of the Places API.
Today I'm going to talk about how you can use the Places
API to build location-based applications.
Location-based applications are becoming all the rage,
and for good reason.
With mobile devices, apps are always at hand
and can provide incredible value based on the end user's
location and context.
There's a number of Google services out there
to help you integrate location into your app, including
Google's geofencing and geocoding APIs.
Most of those APIs, however, are typically
based on user coordinates.
Where the Places API excels is that it partners user location
with accurate, comprehensive local data.
So your app isn't limited to working just with coordinates,
but instead, real places.
Places, like the Sydney Opera House,
can help your app provide more valuable use cases
than just using geographic coordinates.
Sharing a place to meet, attaching location
to a status update, adding events to a place,
or even creating a list of must-see attractions
all become much easier when you work with real-world places.
So with that, let's take a closer look at the Places API.
The Places API is part of a larger Google Maps API product
family.
And you can use the API through either a JavaScript library
or standalone HTTP web service.
The library is available by the Maps JavaScript API v.3.
The Places API is a rich local search API
that includes several powerful location-based features that
connect your end users to places they care about.
One of the biggest features of the Places API
is our data quality.
The Google Places API is powered by the same local listings
database that powers Google Maps, which includes over
100 million listings all around the globe.
These places are all embedded and moderated by numerous teams
in order to become a real Google place,
so developers can rest easy that their apps are
using the most up-to-date, comprehensive, and accurate
model of the world.
Then moving from the data side of things
to more of the smarts, how many times
have you groaned when faced with the address form
on a mobile app?
Don't your thumbs deserve something better
than typing in a full address in a small keyboard?
As both a user and a developer, you
know that while typing in a location or address
is hard work, it's often a vital part of a user flow.
Otherwise, how can an app send a taxi
to the right pick-up location, know what area a user wants
to rent an apartment in, or ship the product
to the right address?
To help your app get the data it needs
and limit the pain for your end users,
the Places API offers an Autocomplete service,
which provides type-ahead search functionality
that both Airbnb and Sunrise Calendar already use today.
The Autocomplete API allows you to choose what types of places
you want to get back.
So, if you're real estate app that only cares about cities,
or a travel planning app that only cares
about establishments, or let's say a geotagging app that
cares about both, Autocomplete can
be customized to suit your needs.
If you can't tell ready, we're huge fans of Autocomplete.
And with its clear benefits to both developers
like you and your end users, we believe
it's a no-brainer integration for
any location-based application.
In addition to Autocomplete, another one
of the Places API's primary features is Search.
The Places API has two main flavors
of Search, Nearby Search and Tech Search.
Nearby Search allows you to define a particular radius
to discover and explore establishments close by.
Tech Search returns information about a set
of places based on a query string.
It's like having the magic of Google Maps' search box
inside your own application.
Both endpoints also include various knobs and levers
so you can customize what type of data is returned.
For example, in this map, we're only
showing museums around central Sydney.
Showing specific types of places is only one
of the many customizations you can do.
You can also choose to return to your end users
only places that are open now or ones at a specific price level.
With the Places API Search features,
you can enable your users to find, explore,
and share places that matter to them.
Finding a place is often just the first step.
Users might want more information about a place
beyond just its name, location, and type.
For example, if you're building a travel planning tool which
suggests restaurants, shops, and sites and hotels,
your users will likely need access
to phone numbers, price levels, and hours of operation
to complete their reservations.
They would also likely need photos and reviews
to help with picking the best places to stay, visit, and eat.
This valuable place information, along with a handful
of other useful data fields, is all
available with the Place API Details service.
To get a place's details, all you need
is an identifier, which is returned from both the Search
and Autocomplete services.
Now while we're extremely confident about Google's
local listing data freshness, we also
know that the world's places change very, very quickly.
And sometimes your end users may know more about new places
before we do.
The Places API allows you to add new places
so that your users can interact with them immediately.
Perhaps your app encourages users
to share exciting place with friends.
What happens if someone discovers a shiny new Google
shoe store, and they can't find it with the API?
You can use the Add a Place action to add the place
to the app so that your users can always interact with
their model of the world in addition to Google's.
This was a very quick overview of the Places API.
There's so much more you can do.
Please click this link to get to our documentation.
We also have a thriving community
of developers on Stack Overflow, where
you can ask technical questions and find tons of advice
and insight about how to best use the Places API.
Thanks so much for checking out this video.
I look forward to seeing what you
can do with the Google Places API.