Location and context overview

One of the unique features of mobile applications is location awareness. Mobile users take their devices with them everywhere, and adding location awareness to your app offers users a more contextual experience. The location APIs available in Google Play services facilitate adding location awareness to your app with automated location tracking, geofencing, and activity recognition.

Note: The documentation here uses the Google Play services location APIs over the Android framework APIs (android.location). To setup your app to access these APIs, read Set Up Google Play Services.

Documentation

• Optimize location for battery
• Get the last known location
• Change location settings
• Receive location updates
• Display a location address
• Create and monitor geofences
• Detect when users start or end an activity
• Migrate to location and context APIs
• Add maps

Videos

Additional resources

To learn more about requesting access to location information in your app, see the following additional resources:

Samples

• LocationUpdatesForegroundService project on GitHub - An example of an app that allows the app to continue a user-initiated action without requesting all-the-time access to background location.
• LocationUpdatesPendingIntent project on GitHub - An example of an app that requests access to background location.