We recently announced Navigation SDK which allows you to seamlessly integrate the familiar Google Maps turn-by-turn navigation experience directly into your Android and iOS applications.

This blog post outlines some of the best practices that you can use to build smooth, consistent and reliable navigation experiences with Navigation SDK for your Android applications.

Interacting with the navigation map

When integrating with the Navigation SDK, you can either use SupportNavigationFragment, which is a wrapper for NavigationView, or interact directly with NavigationView. In most cases, we recommend using SupportNavigationFragment over NavigationView. SupportNavigationFragment handles NavigationView lifecycle callbacks, so you don’t need to manage them yourself. However, if you do need to interact with NavigationView, be careful about managing lifecycle methods and events.

Best practices

• Use SupportNavigationFragment instead of NavigationView, whenever possible.

• If using NavigationView, use strict ordering when invoking lifecycle methods.

• If using NavigationView, invoke lifecycle events from the activity or fragment, not both.

For more information, see the Navigation Map interactions in the Navigation SDK developer documentation.

Managing navigation notifications

Navigation notifications are shown when users are navigating, both with or without a destination set, and help ensure location update accuracy. It’s important for apps to manage Android restrictions on starting foreground services from the background and accessing location from the background, in order to maximize location accuracy, minimize battery usage, and avoid memory leaks.

Best practices

• Request “Allow all the time” location permissions from app users.

• Ensure proper cleanup of listeners to clear navigation notifications.

• When re-invoking NavigationApi#initForegroundServiceManager methods, invoke NavigationApi#clearForegroundServiceManager first.

For more information, see the Background location usage in the Navigation SDK developer documentation.

Interacting with the GoogleMap object

In addition to allowing you to add navigation experiences to your app, the Navigation SDK for Android also includes non-navigation map functionality from the Maps SDK for Android. Non-navigation maps are accessed using the GoogleMap class. GoogleMap APIs allow you to create custom maps experiences, including drawing polygons, customizing icons, and more. When implementing GoogleMap features in your app, it’s important to keep non-navigation maps separate from navigation maps and to manage the GoogleMap lifecycle in relation to the navigation experience.

Best practices

• Implement GoogleMap features on a separate maps instance from navigation experiences.

• Use getMapAsync to obtain the GoogleMap instance.

For more information, see the GoogleMap interactions in the Navigation SDK developer documentation.

Cleaning up instances

Cleaning up instances and sessions after they are no longer needed is important for avoiding memory leaks and other issues. In particular, be sure to clear navigation destinations and clean up map elements on GoogleMap objects.

Best practices

• Use Navigator#clearDestinations and Navigator#cleanup when navigation sessions are completed.

• Clean up GoogleMap elements when they are no longer needed.

For more information, see the Instance cleanup in the Navigation SDK developer documentation.

Additional recommendations

In addition to the implementation best practices described above, the following recommendations can help ensure that you stay up to date on the latest Navigation SDK developments:

• Use Maven for Navigation SDK builds.

• Use the latest Navigation SDK version available.

• Keep updated with Mandatory Service Announcements.

• Don’t use deprecated methods.

• Follow our demo apps on GitHub.

Get started with integration with Navigation SDK.  View the Navigation SDK API documentation and references. You can help ensure your users have a smooth and reliable navigation experience by following these best practices.