Google Earth API Will Be Retired On December 12, 2015

An anonymous reader writes Google [on Friday] announced it plans to retire the Google Earth API on December 12, 2015. The reason is simple: Both Chrome and Firefox are removing support for Netscape Plugin Application Programming Interface (NPAPI) plugins due to security reasons, so the API's death was inevitable. The timing makes sense. Last month, Google updated its plan for killing off NPAPI support in Chrome, saying that it would block all plugins by default in January and drop support completely in September. The company also revealed that the Google Earth plugin had dropped in usage from 9.1 percent of Chrome users in October 2013 to 0.1 percent in October 2014. Add dwindling cross-platform support (particularly on mobile devices), and we're frankly surprised the announcement didn't come sooner.

Comments

Glad I Didn't Build an Application Around That

[Greyfox]

Google Earth is a nifty thing and I can think of several applications I'd really like to build around it. I'd actually been kicking around the idea of using the Google Earth plugin to do some stuff, but I also know Google's tendency to do stuff like this. I'd also been looking into getting around some of the limitations in Google Earth by setting up a socket server that pretends to be a web server and shoveling KML into Google Earth via fast-refreshing network links. That kind of works, but it's awkward. My other alternative is to use OpenLayers, but then I have to write more of my GUI in JavaScript, which I kind of hate.

One of the things I do with Google Earth is install a GPS tracker on my cell phone and take it on a skydive. I use MyTracks to log my coordinates every second and use a little application I wrote to turn the MyTracks data into a KML file, detect where I deployed my canopy and drop a push-pin there and plot the jump on Google Earth so you can see the jump in 3D. MyTracks actually has an "Export to KML" option, but it doesn't handle altitude very well and just clamps your entire track to the ground. Apparently the developers didn't consider the "I'm 2.5 miles above the surface of the planet" use-case when they wrote the thing heh.

The cell phone isn't a great GPS tracker to use for this -- the GPS hardware in the Samsung Galaxy S5 I'm using now is actually almost usable. The S3 used to regularly lose 2/3rds of the points on my jump. There are custom skydiver GPS units available that have much higher accuracy, and they're used regularly in wingsuit competitions and stuff like that. It'd be really neat to plot an entire load of skydivers together on Google Earth and do a real-time replay of each one's position along their track during the jump. I could pull this off using the socket server method of putting KML into Google Earth and updating a new point for each wingsuit's location every second. It wouldn't even really be all that much work, but I don't really like how I'd have to do the design, and that's kept me from it.

Re:Alternative?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't blame Mozilla for this. Google is intentionally keeping PPAPI exclusive to Chrome.

The API is not documented or standardized. A lot of parts of it are explicitly secret (only Google and select partners like Adobe know about them). The only standard is "it should do whatever it does in Chrome," and Google designs it around Chrome without any concern for accommodating other browsers. So even if Mozilla poured energy into reverse engineering it and implementing what would necessarily be a slower, less complete shadow of the Chrome version, Google could (and would) still pull the rug out from under you by changing the API next month. It's just not an option.

Google is being incredibly petty and anti-cooperative with this stuff and people act like they're Goddamn pioneers. It's the same shit you see with Android/Google Play, or with Mir in Ubuntu--they call it "open" but it's not open enough for anyone else to actually use.