Monday, March 09, 2009

Android Meenie early preview: more features described

In my previous post we've seen some basic features of Meenie, like adding placemarks to the map while you are on the road, but there's a more common use case when you are planning your trip in advance and want to add some placemarks, let's say the airport, hotel, office, restaurants, etc.

While it's perfectly possible to use the same use case as being on the road, it's much more confortable to add those placemarks and search for restaurants, hotels or whatever you are looking for in the comfort of your desktop computer. In those cases we will be using Google Maps to help us.
Google Maps has a feature called My Maps, where you can define map placemarks, lines and areas.


Then using a conversion utility which is running in Google Appengine to off-load the processing of the map in the android phone, we will be able to download this map and allow Meenie to show the same content. To locate the map we will be using the URL that appears in Link, in Google Maps top right.

This is the result.



Some details about Google Appengine being access from Android and using the Google Maps Link URL in Meenie and other Android applications were ommited for clarity and will be discussed on upcoming posts.



As always, comments are gladly welcome.

No comments: