By: Frederic Lardinois
Google Play Services, the company’s client-side library for
allowing Android developers to easily use Google-powered features like Maps and
Google+ in their apps, got a major update today that includes a number of
interesting new features. Many of these, Google notes, are meant to provide greater power savings, but the company says it has also made a number of performance improvements.
interesting new features. Many of these, Google notes, are meant to provide greater power savings, but the company says it has also made a number of performance improvements.
With this update, for example, developers can now use hardware-based GPS
geofencing on devices that support it (including, for example, the Nexus 4).
Battery consumption is one of the banes of location-based services, but Google
says this technique can result in significantly lower battery usage.
To save even more battery, Google Play Services 3.2 now also allows the
selection of a low-power modeFused Location Provider, which manages Play Services’
location technology in the background. And a new Snapshot feature now allows
developers to just display a bitmap image of the current map instead of an
interactive map to improve performance and battery life.
for the
Besides these location features, this update also brings a new and easily
integrated, simplified sharing control to Play Services for developers who use
Google+ sign-ins. In addition, Google says, it has “taken the opportunity to
add some butter to the Google+ sign-in animation” (a reference to Project
Butter – Google’s initiative to make Android’s animations a bit more fluid).
For developers who want to integrate Photo Sphere, Google has added a
compass mode, so users can now view them by simply moving their phones.
Source: Techcruch
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