Realtime mapping and geolocation tracking is a core feature of web and mobile apps across every industry. The idea is simple – detect and stream location data to a live-updating map to smoothly watch location updates as they change in the real world. With that, Android geolocation tracking is an essential technology today.

To get started, you’ll first need your PubNub publish and subscribe keys. If you don’t have an account, you can sign up here, and your pub/sub keys are available in the Admin Dashboard. The keys look like UUIDs and start with “pub-c-” and “sub-c-” prefixes respectively.

Once you have your pub/sub keys, create a new PubNub application to represent your Android application (and any other systems that communicate using the same channels). The PubNub application will include publish and subscribe keys that applications can use for those specified features.

The Google Maps API provides an Android Map widget that displays a map based on your configuration. The map size, map center latitude and longitude, zoom level, map style and other options may be configured to your initial preferences and updated on the fly.

It also provides an initialization callback option that calls a function you specify when the map is loading. You can use features like Map Markers and Polylines which allow you to place friendly markers and flight paths on the map at the location(s) you specify. All the points are user-specified and may be updated in real time as updates arrive.

Google Maps provides great mapping functionality, and combined with PubNub for the realtime location coordinates updates, the two work incredibly well together.