Android Google Directions Service usable natively? with wrapper framework? Public transit/biking directions available?

Question

Some questions about Android and Google Directions Service:

• Is there a native way on Android to use the Directions Service from Google or are there any nice Wrapper Frameworks? I would like to retrieve the time needed to get from A to B and maybe show the route in a table and/or map.

• As far as I know directions can only be retrieved for "walking" and "driving". Is there a way (maybe not from google) to get this Information also for public transports or "biking" ?

Answer 1

I don't know exactly if this is what you want, but you could fire up an intent like this:

String url = "http://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=some+address&daddr=another+Address"
Intent intent = new Intent(android.content.Intent.ACTION_VIEW,  Uri.parse(url));

To get biking directions add "&dirflg=b" to the url. For public transport add "dirflg=r".

This will display the route in the google Maps app. If you want to get this in your app inside a mapview, please see this code at github. You could hack into the code to add biking and public transport functionality.

Hope this helps somehow.