Places photo request

[nickmccomb]

Is there any way to use the Google Places Photos service for iOS yet? I can't see any updates for iOS in the Places branch. Any ETA?

[thomasw]

Place Photos support is discussed over in #149. There hasn't yet been any work done towards supporting it from the iOS side (at least not that's currently public).

[nickmccomb]

@thomasw i read something about @tolu360 saying use the JS version of the Places API for now. Have you tried this? Do you know if this is possible?

[thomasw]

You can use the Places web service API from an RN app, but you'd need some way of securing your API key. You'd typically use a referrer restriction on such keys, but you won't be able to do that in this context.

Unfortunately, even if you manage that somehow, photo API support is (essentially) free when using the Android SDK but it costs money when using the web service API. See https://developers.google.com/maps/billing/understanding-cost-of-use#places-photo

[nickmccomb]

Probably best to setup Node.js on a server to do the Places / Photos API requests and pass it back to your app

[nickmccomb]

For anyone who needs Places Photos working on iOS and Android, here's my Node.js API code for getting places around a lat/lng and then adding a Places Photo to each Place returned in that location (if a photo exists for that place).

Step 1: Setup a server somewhere - I used a Digital Ocean server
Step 2: Install Node.js on the server - Google can show you this
Step 3: Install Express, Axios, body-parser, express-validator/check & cors
Step 4: Get your Google Places API key (server key) - https://console.developers.google.com/apis/
Step 5: Add the code below to your Node code and restart Node (runs on port 3000)
Step 6: Call the API from your React Native app

Feel free to create a public Git repo for it so anyone can contribute to it.

API code: https://pastebin.com/71h2Xv9x
Request example: https://ibb.co/egwmsp

Note: You probably want to authenticate your user in your API before doing any Places requests.

[tolu360]

This is getting revisited sometime soon with the latest beta release, please see #198