Location aware mobile-device software development

A system for location aware applications, comprising:

• a data store that includes map information and location information, wherein the map information and location information is shared by different location aware applications on a device;
• a location manager configured to receive location information from at least one location source that includes a location of an item, and in response to the location of the item relative to an area of interest, generate a location event;
• a map manager that is coupled to the data store and that is configured to abstract map information and manage map operations for the different location aware applications on the device including map-rendering for displaying maps, wherein the map manager may utilize more than one map rendering engine when displaying maps for the different location aware applications;
• wherein the map manager provides different map choices to the location aware applications based on criteria received from a location aware application and provides a ranking of the maps according to their order of suitability to the location aware application;
• and
• a location aware application that is coupled to the location manager and the map manager and that is configured to execute event driven code in response to the location event, and also configured to interact with the abstracted map information;
• wherein the location aware application supplies the criteria to the map manager that is used in selecting and rendering a map by the map manager.