Location awareness offers many benefits to an app, so many in fact that even desktop apps now attempt to get the user's location. Location uses ranges from turn-by-turn directions, "find the nearest" applications, alerts based on location, and there are now even location-based games that get you out exploring with your device.
The Google APIs offer many rich features for creating location-aware applications and mapping features. Our first recipe will look at obtaining the last known location on the device along with receiving updates as the location changes. If you are requesting location updates for a proximity location, take a look at using the Geofence option instead in the Create and monitor a Geofence recipe.
All the recipes in this chapter use the Google Libraries. If you have not already downloaded the SDK Packages, follow the instructions from Google.
Note
Add SDK Packages from http://developer.android.com/sdk/installing/adding-packages.html.
Now that you have the location...
