Session Speaker: Nickolas Landry
Main focus is Interacting with location service. Not a very popular session as only five people in this session.
WP7 location services
-Phone positioning via GPS, Assisted-GPS (cell towers) and WiFi
Bing maps Web Services include: (REST & SOAP)
- Geocoding service
- Routing service
- Search service
Geospatial Data storage options
- SQL Server 2008
- SQL Azure
- Bing spatial data services
Pros/Cons of each Phone positioning technology:
-)GPS:
+ Accuracy
-Power
-Speed
-Indoors
-)Cell towers:
-Accuracy
+Power
+Speed
-Wilderness
-)WiFi: (Uses crowd sourcing)
-Accuracy
+/- Power
+/- Speed
+/- Urban areas (better in urban areas)
Don’t have to interact the technologies directly.. Just use Location Services API. The service is ‘smart’ and figures out which source to use given the parms you give it for accuracy/etc.
Emulator doesn’t allow for location services. Some mock services can be used. Next release of WP7 dev tools (coming out with Mango) will have new tools for this. Separate window will automatically feed location coords based on Bing Map point and click as well as some route creation. (My guess is similar to how Android does this stuff now)
Namespace to use = Microsoft.Phone.Controls.Maps
To use maps control, you need ot have a Bing’s map account. Using Live ID. This is free. Make sure you pick Mobile as the type of app when signing up for the key. This will allow you to request unlimited GeoCoding/Reverse GeoCoding calls, even in the enterprise. Just needs to be run on a mobile device.
GeoCoordinateCatcher(GeoPositionAccuracy.High ) Will use GPS if can get info from it.
.Default will try to use a combo of wifi/cell tower or a cached location.
Things you need to know for LIS
- Locate the phone position
- Display a map at specific coors (lat,long)
- Pan/Zoom the map
- Add a pushpin to the map
- Geocode an address
- Calculate & draw a route on a map
- Draw a polygon on the map
LocationServices have a property that allows for reverse geocoding. (CivicAddress Class) Don’t have to call the Bing Maps WebService, can just use this on the device and it will abstract the stuff.
A few things coming with the Mango release:
- Camera stream access
- Compass and Gyro API’s (Should lead to augmented reality scenario possibilities)
- Will have new options for live agents and multitasking
I felt Nick did a very good job delivering the content he set out to deliver. Very knowledgeable and one who was willing to share his knowledge after the session too.