The ability to use GPS for tracking devices, such as vehicles or people in real time was very useful when we were developing our app. It's also easy enough to test an application without needing physical hardware (such as simulators). We used this API mostly because it made development easier by allowing us to build apps quickly while still being able to track users' locations. I am not sure if there are any downsides to using these APIs but they seem like reliable options overall. Our team chose them mainly due their ease-of-use so that developers could get started right away instead of having to spend more resources writing custom code from scratch.