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AWS Launches Location Service, Opening New Opportunities For Developers

Jan. 11, 2021, 9:09 p.m.

TL;DR

AWS recently released the preview of Amazon Location, which will allow developers to add maps, location awareness, geofencing, and other location-related features to their web and mobile apps. The announcement was made as part of AWS re:Invent 2020. It aims to be an easier and cost-effective way of adding location services from multiple providers. The service is available now as a preview has four different resources which include maps, place indexes, trackers, and geofence collections.

Amazon Location Service aims at providing affordable and easy geolocation functionalities to developers

Key Facts

1
The Amazon Location Service will make it easier for developers to location data to their apps. It allows adding features such as maps, points of interest, geocoding, routing, geofences, and tracking to web and mobile applications.
2
It supports high-quality data from trusted providers like Esri and HERE Technologies. Existing map libraries like Mapbox GL and Tangram can also be used. Developers can combine proprietary data with data provided by the service to have complete control of their location data.
3
Amazon Location Service said they protect clients’ privacy and security by anonymizing all queries sent to service providers and removing customer metadata and account information. It also helps protect sensitive information by not letting tracking or geofencing information to leave the AWS account.
4
The Amazon Location Service can be accessed from AWS Management Console, AWS Command Line Interface (CLI), or through a set of APIs.

Details

Location services are essential to most web and mobile applications today. While services like Google Maps and Azure Maps are leading in the location data market, AWS has come up with its own location service to compete with these older players. Amazon Location Service aims at providing affordable and easy geolocation functionalities to developers.

Google increased the price of map view requests from $0.50 per 1,000 to $7.00 per 1,000 back in 2018, thus putting the future of many small companies at risk due to increased expenses. AWS does not assemble its own geolocation data but uses data from other service providers, aiming to make the service much less expensive.

Though the product currently offers only Maps, Places, Tracking, Geofencing, and an API for routing, which will be added to the preview soon, it is venturing into an area where it did not offer managed solutions to date. The Amazon Location Service is likely to be helpful in use cases such as delivery, asset tracking as well as improving user engagement and geomarketing.

We want to make it easier and more cost-effective for you to add maps, location awareness, and other location-based features to your web and mobile applications. Until now, doing this has been somewhat complex and expensive, and also tied you to the business and programming models of a single provider.
Jeff Barr
Vice President & Chief Evangelist, Amazon Web Services