title: How can you tell when an Android device has a Geocoder backend service?
body: <p>According to the <a href="http://developer.android.com/reference/android/location/Geocoder.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Geocoder documentation</a>, the class provides methods into a backend service which may or may not exist on the device.  If the geocoder doesn't exist on the device, theoretically a geocode request will return no results.  However, how can one differentiate between no results due to there being no backend geocoder service vs. there being no results because the location makes no sense?</p>
  
  <p>My app already requires the Google Maps API, so perhaps this is a moot point; as a secondary question, does the Google Maps API <strong>always</strong> include a Geocoder?</p>