Using Google's Data API in Brew: An Introduction

ecently, Google released its robust "Google Data API" with little fanfare. In fact, if you aren't an avid tech blog reader or didn't go to Google Developer Day, you might have missed it. Upon inspection, it's clear that Google did not have the mobile developer in mind when mapping out these APIs, but that doesn't mean you can't make the most of the tools they've released. While Google has made pre-compiled libraries available for several higher order languages (from Java to Python), as Brew developers, you will have to take the hard road and use HTTP. However, since the HTTP protocol API is the least common denominator, it will work well on any system with a decent HTTP/HTTPS implementation.

In this article, you’ll learn to add basic Calendar functionality to your mobile application and how to get the XML feed for a public calendar and login through secure HTTPS. Along the way, you should get a good sense of how to use IWEB and Brew's straightforward implementation of SSL. This article is meant as an introduction to Google's API, not a tour de force. Stay tuned to this site as forthcoming articles will deal with J2ME development and more complicated features.