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Google has announced a new People API for Android and according the blog post, should make it easier for developers to tap info from a user’s Contacts — after they’ve given permissions of course. This actually simplifies the previous way of retrieving data which relied on two separate APIs: both Google+ and Contacts. Google says the new People API will eventually replace Contacts and “uses the newest protocols and technologies.” Here’s an example of how it works:
“…if your user has contacts in her private contact list, a call to the API (if she provides consent to do so) will retrieve a list containing the contacts merged with any linked profiles. If the user grants the relevant scopes, the results are returned as a people.connections.list object. Each person object in this list will have a resourceName property, which can be used to get additional data about that person with a call to people.get.”
Aside from just merging profile information from multiple sources and APIs, the People API will be able to pull up additional data that the previous APIs couldn’t. Things like private addresses, phone numbers, emails, birthdays, and social connections. Again, only after the user has given their explicit permission. Google says they hope developers will use the new tools to build the even better web/mobile apps and “delight your users and those in their circles of influence.”
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