The main thing that sets hybrid apps apart from ordinary, mobile-friendly web apps is the ability to interact with the operating system and hardware of the underlying mobile device. Modern devices offer a plethora of services to app developers, from GPS and database functionality to Bluetooth, NFC, and other communication technologies. Making good use of these services allows us to build apps that meet the needs of mobile users in the best way possible.

In this chapter, we will continue building on the brief introduction to mobile services that we saw in the last chapter, and we'll do some refreshing as necessary. Our goal is to use the GPS receiver, which is one of the most ubiquitous smartphone features, in order to build a simple navigation app. In doing so, we will also get familiar with a new, fundamental AngularJS component called the directive.