Today at the Verizon Developer Community (VDC) Conference in Las Vegas, America’s largest operator announced 20 new APIs that are now available to developers. In an effort to “open its network to developers,” Verizon has made available new APIs for messaging, network and — most importantly — location.
Through its network APIs, the carrier hopes to foster development of new, innovative applications by giving third-party developers access to the Verizon Wireless network. It’s messaging APIs will allow developers to create applications and services that send, receive and request receipt of text and multimedia messages for Verizon customers, as well as allow developers to offer features such as “link-to-buy” for products or to allow users to get discounts or more information about a product or service.
Most interesting is the introduction of its location APIs. Before excitement ensues, however, there’s several limitations to what developers can do. The new APIs will allow developers to request and incorporate location information in applications and services on “MOST” Verizon Wireless smartphones. There are two versions of location APIs: coarse location, which has an average range of one to two miles and works with all Verizon Wireless phones; and refined, which offers more granular location information and works on a select number of Verizon Wireless phones.
Verizon of course requires the user to opt-in and consent to provide location information to the requestor per industry best practices and Mobile Marketing Association guidelines, but it’s still interesting that a carrier is finally loosening the ropes to location data. While it’s not the “holy grail” of location data that many app developers and marketers have been clamoring for, it’s still an interesting development.
Awesome! First carrier I heard doing this vs a third party like location labs
These LOC-AID guys are pretty serious about privacy management. They focus on enterprise developers, companies with big apps and customers. If you are looking for a quick location API for a gaming app or start-up, LOC-AID isn't the first place to look, because they have a high bar for app certification (see their dev zone). Check out the dev zone – it is all about enterprise LBS.
I have been hearing rumors about this for some time. Its great that Verizon has introduced these user friendly APIs. What excites me most is the announcement of the location based APIs which have a huge potential. From what I know of the subject, LOC-AID seems to be the best option for developers. The company has a great reputation for providing developer support and the best API in this space. LOC-AID is the only network-centric location enabler in North America that can offer location ubiquity to enterprise developers .Their contracts are simple and easy to understand so that developers like us do not have to waste time on legalese but can get down to working on powering their applications with location information provided by LOC-AID. Registering your app and getting access is easy just go to http://developer.loc-aid.com/getit.