Hello Places API for Android and iOS, from Android Developers Blog.
People don’t think of their location in terms of coordinates on a map. They want context on what shops or restaurants they’re at, and what’s around them. To help your apps speak your users’ language, we’re launching the Places API for Android, as well as opening a beta program for the Places API for iOS.
The Places API web service and JavaScript library have been available for some time. By providing native support for Android and iOS devices, you can optimize the mobile experience with the new APIs by taking advantage of the device’s location signals.
The Places APIs for Android and iOS bridge the gap between simple geographic locations expressed as latitude and longitude, and how people associate location with a known place. For example, you wouldn’t tell someone you were born at 25.7918359,-80.2127959. You’d simply say, “I was born in Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, Florida.” The Places API brings the power of Google’s global places database into your app, providing more than 100 million places, like restaurants, local businesses, hotels, museums, and other attractions.
