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SPGooglePlacesAutocomplete

SPGooglePlacesAutocomplete is a simple objective-c wrapper around the Google Places Autocomplete API. The API can be used to provide autocomplete functionality for text-based geographic searches, by returning Places such as businesses, addresses, and points of interest as a user types. SPGooglePlacesAutocomplete also provides support for converting Place results into CLPlacemark objects for easy mapping with MKMapView.

Screenshots

How To Use It

Requirements

SPGooglePlacesAutocomplete requires a deployment target >= iOS 5.0.

Installation

  1. Link your project against the CoreLocation framework.
  2. Copy the following files to your project:
    • SPGooglePlacesAutocompleteUtilities.h/.m
    • SPGooglePlacesAutocompleteQuery.h/.m
    • SPGooglePlacesPlaceDetailQuery.h/.m
    • SPGooglePlacesAutocompletePlace.h/.m
  3. (Optional) If you would like to utilize the provided sample view controller for searching and mapping Places, link your project against the MapKit framework and copy the following files to your project:
    • SPGooglePlacesAutocompleteViewController.h/.m/.xib
    • locateButton(@2x).png
    • location(@2x).png
  4. Open SPGooglePlacesAutocompleteUtilities.h and replace kGoogleAPIKey with your Google API key. You can find your API key in the Google APIs Console.

Performing Queries

Instantiate a new SPGooglePlacesAutocompleteQuery and fill in the properties you'd like to specify.

#import "SPGooglePlacesAutocompleteQuery.h"

...

SPGooglePlacesAutocompleteQuery *query = [SPGooglePlacesAutocompleteQuery query];
query.input = @"185 berry str";
query.radius = 100.0;
query.language = @"en";
query.types = SPPlaceTypeGeocode; // Only return geocoding (address) results.
query.location = CLLocationCoordinate2DMake(37.76999, -122.44696);

Then, call -fetchPlaces to ping Google's API and fetch results. The resulting array will return objects of the SPGooglePlacesAutocompletePlace class.

[query fetchPlaces:^(NSArray *places, NSError *error) {
    NSLog(@"Places returned %@", places);
}];

If you need to update the query (for instance, as the user types), simply update the appropriate properties and call -fetchPlaces again. Any outstanding requests will automatically be cancelled and a new request with the updated properties will be issued.

Resolving Places to CLPlacemarks

The Google Places Autocomplete API will return the names of Places that match your query. It will not, however, return lat-long information about these results. SPGooglePlacesAutocomplete handles this by resolving Place results to placemarks. Simply call -resolveToPlacemark on a SPGooglePlacesAutocompletePlace:

[query fetchPlaces:^(NSArray *places, NSError *error) {
    SPGooglePlacesAutocompletePlace *place = [places firstObject];
    if (place) {
        [place resolveToPlacemark:^(CLPlacemark *placemark, NSString *addressString, NSError *error) {
            NSLog(@"Placemark: %@", placemark);
        }];
    }
}];

When searching for "geocode" (address) Places, the library utilizes CLGeocoder to geocode the address. When searching for "establishment" (business) Places, the library will automatically ping The Google Places API to fetch the details needed to geolocate the business.

Sample Code

For an example of how to use SPGooglePlacesAutocomplete, please see the included example project. Be sure to replace kGoogleAPIKey with your Google API key!