Google announces People API to streamline how apps gather contact data, will eventually replace existing Google+ API and Google Contacts API
Google People API Lets Devs Poke Through Users' Contacts — Google today announced the People API, a single API it hopes will eventually be able …
Context & Ripple Effects
The People API lands a year after Google began merging its identity surfaces: the updated Contacts interface already folds Google+ profile information into Contacts, and the 'About me' tool centralizes what personal data appears across Gmail, YouTube, and Maps. The new API extends that same consolidation to the developer side, giving apps one endpoint for contact data instead of separate Google+ and Google Contacts integrations.
First-order effects
- Developers currently pulling contacts through the Google+ API and Google Contacts API gain a single replacement endpoint, but inherit a migration obligation for every app built on the two legacy interfaces.
Second-order effects
- The Hangouts API shutdown later in this coverage shows Google follows through on retiring overlapping developer surfaces, so teams integrating People data should expect the two legacy APIs to be deprecated rather than maintained alongside the new one.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, Google keeps consolidating fragmented personal-data APIs into fewer, centrally governed endpoints — concentrating both integration convenience and permissioning control over user identity data in one place.
The trend: Google is steadily collapsing scattered identity and contact APIs into single unified endpoints, pairing each consolidation with eventual deprecation of the legacy interfaces it replaces.