Amazon introduces mapping API as alternative to Google
Amazon is giving developers a pathway to bucking Google from their mobile apps if they so choose. As part of their mobile app SDK, the retailer-turned-tablet-maker has introduced a new maps API, which developers can utilize in their own applications to provide mapping functionality.
The new API will provide similar capabilities to what Google offers, including the ability to pinpoint a user’s current location as well as overlay satellite imagery, points of interest, and local data. Where, exactly, Amazon is pulling its mapping data from remains a mystery.
With the Kindle Fire line of tablets Amazon may have chosen Android for the operating system, but it has been retooled in a way so as to distance it from Google’s build. Google’s suite of mobile apps are also not included. The introduction of their own maps API only serves to further drive a wedge between the two. The move certainly won’t sit well with Google, but they have little choice given the free and open nature of the Android OS.
[via GigaOM]