This morning during the Verizon Developer Conference, the carrier has announced that it has opened up its messaging, location and network API to third-party developers for the development of new applications with support for Verizon’s network for alerts, location based services and network connectivity. The messaging APIs will let developers access SMS/MMS tools and build them into applications, while the location APIs will let developers further integrate handset location information with two location APIs, a general one for basic location access and a targeted location API for specific applications. The network API will let developers gain access to certain network features for functionality such as streaming support and data access across applications.
The toolkit for including the APIs into applications will rollout this week with compatibility for BREW MP, Android, Windows Mobile and webOS.
I didn’t know about LOC-AID until I saw the Verizon release. Top management team, cool dev zone. Nothing flashy, just easy APIs and help for getting your app approved on the carriers. So much hype and flash in the LBS market these days, it’s nice to see a company just providing a valuable service at face value (and not trying to be the next Face-Book!)