Book Image

Xamarin Mobile Application Development for Android, Second Edition

Book Image

Xamarin Mobile Application Development for Android, Second Edition

Overview of this book

Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Xamarin Mobile Application Development for Android Second Edition
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Adding map integration


Maps are another truly cool part of mobile computing. They provide a means of navigation, finding points of interest in an area, as well as supporting many other useful scenarios.

There are two basic approaches to interfacing with maps from an app as follows:

  • Navigate to the existing Android map app installed on the device to display a point of interest. Most recent Android devices are preinstalled with the Google Map application. However, it is not guaranteed.

  • Integrate with the Google Maps API. This approach integrates the map view directly to your application using Google Play services. You must create an application in the Google Developer Console and obtain a copy of the API key for your app.

The first option is much easier to implement, whereas the second option allows tighter integration and control of the maps at the cost of more code and complexity. The second option requires very specific versions of the Xamarin.Android binding libraries corresponding to Google...