Creating a Simple Google Map Application - Part 1

Finally we are all set to get started with a development of a simple app. All of us usually start off with hello world which is kind of boring and also helps you a little apart from giving you the happiness of creating your simple app.  So this app is all about displaying the Google maps on your mobile, although you have a Google map application in your mobiles which has more options its gives you the happiness of creating your own Google map app ;).

                So the pre requisites are –

1) Google API’s – These contain all the libraries which you will be using in this app. In order to obtain this,

                a) click on the” Windows “in Eclipse and click on Android SDK and AVD manager.

                b) Click on Available Packages and click on Third Party Add-Ons. As show below.

               

                c) Select Google API’s Android API 8 Version 2.Once it is done your installed packages should look like the following.

2) Obtaining Google Map API Key – This is a key for developers to register with the service.

To obtain this you need to have your own private key or you can use can use the debug.keystore. We will use the debug.keystore for now.  This is usually located in

Then in command prompt go to the java folder and go to /JDK<version>/bin and execute the following command “keytool -list -alias androiddebugkey -keystore <path_to_debug_keystore>.keystore -storepass android -keypass android”

Once you do this you will get a MD5 finger print as shown below.

Once you have got the MD5 finger print, go to the following link Google API Signup to get the API key.

In the next part we will learn about the logic and also start coding our app.