Google announces Google Maps API v3

This week, Google announced the third version of their Google Maps API. At my work at iWink, I have done a lot of Google Maps implementations. Most were quite simple (just a map and some markers), however, other projects were more complicated. For example, for Marketing Groningen I implemented (together with my colleagues) Google Street View for Groningen.

This new version builds upon the previous version. Unfortunately, the default namespace was changed from G* to google.maps.*. This seems like a good idea but will break every old implementation. So if you want to use any of the new versions in your existing implementation, you are out of luck.

Another change is that this version does not require an API key. This will enable the use of maps in different applications, such as RSS readers and probably on social networks as well.

Finally, there a are some improvements in speed and in supported browsers. Most mobile browsers are now supported too.

I am looking forward to working with this new API. It is not a GA release yet, so I won’t be able to use it at iWink. But I’ve got some personal projects as well that might benefit from new version.