Spatially Adjusted

Google I/O News

Written by

James

in

I suppose there is some sort of Google event going on this week and what do you know, we’ve got some GoogleGeo news:

Google Maps API v3 – The new Google Maps API v3 enables support on mobile browsers (such as Mobile Safari), dropping the need for keys (hurray!), now MVC-based architecture (about time), default UI automatically supported (so you never have to worry about updating the UI), cleaned up namespaces (everything is now google.maps.* rather than gmap). So what does this mean? Take a look at the old v2 example.

   
    
    <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
      
        <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>
        Google Maps JavaScript API Example
        <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?file=api&v=2&key=abcdefg&sensor=true_or_false">http://maps.google.com/maps?file=api&v=2&key=abcdefg&sensor=true_or_false
        
    
        function initialize() {
          if (GBrowserIsCompatible()) {
            var map = new GMap2(document.getElementById("map_canvas"));
            map.setCenter(new GLatLng(37.4419, -122.1419), 13);
            map.setUIToDefault();
          }
        }
    
        
      
      <body onload="initialize()" onunload="GUnload()">
        <div style="width:500px;height:300px;" id="map_canvas">

And now v3.

    
    
    <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
    
        <meta name="viewport" content="initial-scale=1.0, user-scalable=no" />
    <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps/api/js?sensor=false">http://maps.google.com/maps/api/js?sensor=false
    
    //
    
        
    
    <body onload="initialize()">
        <div style="width:100%;height:100%;" id="map_canvas">

I like the new look and for me it is much more logical than before (plus mobile browser support FTW!). Check out the documentationand the reference. This coupled with the Google Maps Data API really pushes the Google Maps WAY in front of Microsoft and others.

Become Google Certified? So they have this new Google “Qualified Developer” program now. Looks like you pick a Google API (the page listing them seems 404, but I’m sure maps is going to be one), take some test and then show references and community participation. Much like other developer programs, they’ll have a directory to find “qualified” developers and probably some logos to put on your blog/homepage. Something tells me there will be a ton of people rushing out to get this done. The Javascript API Study Guide (I suppose the Flash Study Guide is on its way) seems to be very strait forward and since it is free, probably worth doing.

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