GCP – Add a more accurate sense of place to your applications using these five YouTube tutorials

Places APIs help users discover the world with rich location data for over 200 million places. By integrating Places data into your applications and websites, you’re able to give your users the information they need to plan a trip to Tokyo or choose a ramen restaurant in their neighborhood. To get the most out of the latest Places features, check out these five videos on the Google Maps Platform YouTube channel, and see if you can spot my place-themed shirts.

Add a Place Autocomplete widget to your Android app
Are your users mistyping place names or dropping off when address forms appear? Using Place Autocomplete increases address accuracy and accelerates task completion.  With Google Maps Platform you can turn any input text field into a search bar that helpfully provides on-the-fly place name predictions for your users as they type. In this video, you learn how to add this functionality to your Android app with the Places SDK for Android.

How to filter Place Search for currently open results

Filtering Place Search results to display only open locations to your users provides a more accurate real-time view of which of your locations are available for users to visit. In this Geocast you’ll learn how to implement a filtered search through HTTP requests to the Web Services API and the Places library in the Maps Javascript API.

How to Get Opening Hours in Place Details

Today, getting accurate opening hours for businesses, offices, and other services is more important than ever. Your users depend on it, and we work hard to ensure the information available from the Places API and SDKs  is as accurate as possible. Take a walkthrough of how to access opening hours through HTTP requests, JavaScript, Android, or iOS all demonstrated in a single video.

In addition to sometimes frequent changes to business hours as companies adjust to the changing environment of the COVID-19 pandemic, users want to know which places have closed temporarily or reopen after a temporary closure. To make the most accurate information available, we recently introduced the business_status field in Place Details requests, which returns whether a place is open, permanently closed, or temporarily closed. In this video, you’ll learn all the details on using this new field

How to incorporate Plus Codes in Place Autocomplete and Geocoding API

Did you know that Place Autocomplete and the Geocoding API now support Plus Codes? A plus code is a simple alphanumeric code which can be combined with a locality (for example: CWC8+R9 Mountain View), derived from latitude and longitude coordinates. This enables anyone worldwide to use a unique, precise digital address, no matter where in the world they are. And, by enabling users who know their plus codes to type them in for more precise addressing, businesses can better serve existing regions or expand their operations to new regions they couldn’t serve before. This Geocast outlines how easy it is to use Plus Codes in your websites and apps.

Have ideas for helpful videos you’d like to see show up on our channel? Let us know on Twitter by tweeting @gmapsplatform. And don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel for the latest updates, tutorials, customer stories, and more.

For more information on Google Maps Platform, visit our website.