Check out the new NAVTEQ Smart APIs for Mobile (BETA)
At MWC, NAVTEQ launched their new Smart™ APIs and made them available in beta, starting with the iPhone. Intrigued by the “Smart” term we asked them what it was all about.
So there are five core APIs in this version of NAVTEQ Smart APIs for Mobile: Mapping, Routing, Advertising, Search and Feedback APIs. These APIs “give you easy access to the world’s strongest map, traffic, and location content, advanced features like traffic-enabled routing” and will “allow you to customize your apps, brand your apps, and better monetize your apps.”
“Some early chats with iPhone developers, tell us that the experience in “Xcode is good and APIs are easy to use” (let us know if you have any thoughts on that). Obviously you better judge for yourself and download them along with technical documentation, tutorials, sample source code, etc at www.nn4d.com/smartapis. You’ll find all you expect from Smart APIs… optimized for mobile, offering new advanced map tiling technology, thin client services, and scalable cloud support.
Where things go very Smart is when you look at the list of features that NAVTEQ plans to roll out… a rich and broad range of premium content and services such as satellite imagery, its visual content like 3D landmarks, Enhanced 3D City Models, transit information, pedestrian routing, movie and event listings, gas prices and restaurant reviews, as well as multiregional support as part of its Smart APIs for Mobile. Looks like it could be a quite interesting year in the location space.
“So what about the terms?” you might ask…
Well, there’s change here too. NAVTEQ has made it easier to get started with these powerful (and more importantly accurate) tools for free! By creating a tiered solution which basically means that you can now get access to “NAVTEQ professional-grade maps, traffic and location content, and build non-commercial apps as well as commercial apps up to a certain scale”, using map viewing and basic routing features and functionality for free, as long as the Location-Aware Advertising and Community Feedback APIs are fully integrated.
Developers using advanced features and functions, or build large-scale commercial apps will be subject to more traditional licensing terms and conditions, but will also benefit from opportunities to incrementally make money through NAVTEQ LocationPoint™ Advertising.
Learn more and download the beta version for iPhone of the new NAVTEQ Smart APIs for Mobile at www.nn4d.com/smartapis.
If you want to see those APIs live or want to ask NAVTEQ about the terms of us we hear that NAVTEQ plans on having a few app development partners exhibiting in its booth at CTIA, showcasing the different features and functionality of the new APIs, so make sure you stop by their stand (#1018 in Central Hall) and there will certainly be a lot of interesting discussions on the subject at the WIPjam where NAVTEQ will also be present.
Or if you want to find out more, seee it live and cannot come to CTIA… Here’s some live footage from Barcelona where NAVTEQ Network for Developers (NN4D), one of our sponsors, came to demo the new APIs first-hand at the Jam. Watch the video from WIP Jam and NAVTEQ’s booth at MWC 2010, of NAVTEQ giving a preview of the new APIs as well as of a reference application they are planning to release.