How to know google apis is installed on phone or not? - android

If i target particular phone to develop application then i need to know full features of that phone. So if i need to know which google apis are installed in that phone, how can i know?
In mobile specification site they don't provide this information.
so is there any other way to know which google apis are provided by the manufacturer?
Thank you.

Check whether the class you want to use is available like this
Class.forName(theclassnameyouneedasasstring);
eg for Google maps
Class.forName("com.google.android.maps.MapActivity");

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How to Make LBS applications in Android

Anyone has a tutorial of making LBS applications like this? I want to make an application to determine the trajectory of the city's public transport me, but I did not find his examples everywhere, if you have please help me to develop it, thank you
It is a concept design of my application layout
To develop an android app which uses Google API's would be a combination of Google Maps API, Location Api, Direction API and also Places API(if you want to fetch the details of your source and destination). If you are developing this app for a special transit system in your city than you would specifically need their own set of API to populate your app data.
But if you want to develop something with free open source Google API you can first make use of the Google Play Services by first referring into your app project and then getting the API key, enabling the direction api "ON" in your developer console and writing code.
Please refer to this tutorial in order to get a better insight of the transit system app you want to develop. You can customize you app UI accordingly once you have the data coming in.
Here are the bunch of links from Google's official documentation regarding implementation of all API's.
https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/android/
https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/directions/
https://developers.google.com/places/documentation/
Hope this would help!!

Why is Google API 2.3 required and cannot use default Android 2.3 for USB IOIO?

The top answer to this question (ADK and Eclipse woes - com.android.future and USBAccessory?) solved my issue (in a specific case), but I wondered why I needed to use the Google API and not the default Android API for implementing a IOIO board via USB. Why does this feature exist in the Google API 2.3.3 and not Android API 2.3.3 (since the android operating system is capable of supporting it... did the Android API developers just not add some additional functionality that makes the IOIO plugin tick?), and why is it not required to use the Google API for 4.2? Is this likely specific to the IOIO interface code I am using (https://github.com/ytai/ioio/wiki/Downloads#client-software-and-ioio-application-firmware-images)?
I would like to further understand the reason behind this so that I can better predict if I encounter a similar issue in the future with other libraries.
I do not have an idea about the USB issue you've mentioned. I just want to clarify why you need to use Google APIs instead of normal Android API in some cases.
Android code is open-source which means anyone can have access to it and can compile the code to make their own android enabled devices. Most of the device manufacturer choose Google's proprietary licensed version of Android which includes some of the Google services inbuilt which are closed source and are not included in the android source code.
These services include Google Play Store, Google Maps, Gmail, Admob etc. So if you want to use any of the Google services/features(which are not included in the usual Android features), you have to use Google APIs, which have support for these features.
An actual device running on Android OS may or may not support these features, depending upon the availability of Google Services in the installed ROM (These can be installed later if you have root access). For example Nokia X series won't support any Play Store, Google map or Google gaming services feature.
I suppose this is true in your case too.
PS: The above info is from my own experience and is not supported by any of the articles mentioned anywhere. Feel free to add references in the comments if you know any article supporting the facts.

How to Get Google Now card information into my own app

I would like to make an app that pushes Google Now cards to the Pebble SmartWatch. Is there a way to access Google Now cards programmatically? I'm guessing from my googling that it's not officially supported, but have people found out any undocumented APIs that access this information?
AFAIK there are no official or unofficial APIs as of now to retrieve the Google Now cards, and there are unlikely to be as it is a proprietary app by Google that gives them a competitive advantage, and not part of the AOSP Android.

android in app payment sdk

I want to add in app purchases to my Android app. I know I can use Google In-App Billing API, but I want to know if there are other libraries I could use that provide a more complete solution so I don't have to write as much code. I know there is Urban Airship but their fees are high. Anybody know of anything else? Are there any big names? Ideally, user would be able to pay using a variety of payment methods. Support for iOS would be nice.
Please note that Google policy differs between paying for virtual goods where you have to use Google APIs, or paying for physical goods where you can use other 3rd parties.
Also some countries are not supported by Google checkout so I guess in these countries you can use 3rd party also for virtual stuff.
This is a direct question so I will use my own company to answer
You can try ZooZ, both for Android and iOS
www.zooz.com

Is it possible to create a plugin built on top of Google Maps for Android?

I currently am planning a small, but useful, addition to Google Maps for Android. I was wondering if I could create a .apk file that, when installed, adds a feature to the stock Google Maps for Android. The only thing I have found is Google Add-on API, although I don't think this is what I want.
If I use the above add-on API, I would be able to create a stand-alone application which fully implements Google Maps API... right? Please give me some clarity here, and let me know if I'm missing something.
The Google Add-on API is a set of classes that allow you to show google maps inside your application. Most apps use this for simply showing a map with some sort of marker on it.
The out of the box functionality is fairly limited and not nearly as feature rich as the google maps application. With enough time and effort you could possibly build a replacement for google maps but it's not as simple as just adding on functionality.
See here for a guide on how to get started using the APIs.
It now is possible to create plugins for google maps or any other app provided you have root access for your android device. once you have the root access, you can use the Xposed framework created by one of the XDA recognised developer rovo89
Please note that this will be only available for the rooted devices that have this framework installed. Again this is an indirect way to enhance any application deployed on your device provided you have an idea of which methods you need to hook into. in the same thread mentioned there is also a link to toutorial which explains how to use the xposed framework to modify and create your own mods.
For non rooted devices, unfortunately, there is no way to implement this functionality.

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