Opening native map app from JavaScript without relying on longitude and latitude coordinates

Question

I am looking for a way to open the native map app of the application from a phonegap wrapped JavaScript app.

So far my research revealed that for Android I will have to use a link in this format:

<a href="geo:38.897096,-77.036545">Geolocation Test</a>

This is problematic because I will have to use an external service to convert the address into longitude and latitude coordinates, which is something I would like to avoid if possible.

In the case of iOS this is a lot simpler. I only have to give it a link in this format:

<a href="maps:q=Bacau">Test 2</a>

And the native map app get's opened.

Is there any way, similar to the one in iOS, for Android to give it a plain link with an address in a specific format and the device will know to open it's native map app?

Answer 1

Looking at the Android intents list it should be possible using the q parameter within the geo: URI space.

Try this:

<a href="geo:0,0?q=Bacau">Test</a>

Answer 2

Cordova 3.6.0 introduces a second whitelist, for restricting which URLs are allowed to launch external applications. In previous versions of Cordova, all non-http URLs, such as mailto:, geo:, sms: and intent, were implicitly allowed to be the target of an a tag. Because of the potential for an application to leak information, if an XSS vulnerability allows an attacker to construct arbitrary links, these URLs must be whitelisted as well, starting in Cordova 3.6.0.

Cordova 3.6.0 Whitelist Guide

So you need to add explicitly in the config.xml:

  <access origin="tel:*" launch-external="yes" />
  <access origin="mailto:*" launch-external="yes" />