I am working on an iPhone map application and wanted to know whether it was possible to request any labels visible on Google Maps given a longitude/latitude and radius?
For example if I gave the following location to this Google Maps API, I would get back McCullough Hall, Moore Hall, etc. The list would be any place labels visible on the map (doesn't have to be just restaurants, businesses).
If this is possible can you direct me to where I can learn more about this. If this isn't possible, can you direct me towards another API where it is possible?
Look into Googles reverse geocoding, I think that's what you're looking for.
The short answer, you cannot!.
The only way is to search for places by name and get a reference key to query the place details including lat/lng. Not the other way around.
IMHO, this is mainly a policy of Google instead of being technical limitation.
Related
I am looking for a online app or code to embed that allows a user to set a certain location on a map.
What we need is a form in which a user inputs its name, address, email and his favorite location which can be a certain point in a town, a point of interest or an arbitrary place in the woods. We would like to see the map selection as well or the GPS coordinates of his selection.
We thought about Google Maps but did not figure a way to achieve this.
Do you have an idea how we can achieve this?
Thanks!
I found something that is usable:
Google Maps API Reverse Geocoding
I want to draw a route between two places. I have the GPS value of those places. I can get the GPS route values between those places from the google api http://maps.google.com/maps?output=dragdir&saddr=&daddr=.
I want to know that will google reject my app. Because I found that "the Directions API may only be used in conjunction with displaying results on a Google map; using Directions data without displaying a map for which directions data was requested is prohibited. Additionally, calculation of directions generates copyrights and warnings which must be displayed to the user in some fashion. For complete details on allowed usage, consult the Maps API Terms of Service License Restrictions"
Ple give me clarification on this.
You may not use the Google Maps API unless you use it with a Google Map. To use the direction data you would have to use a UIWebView with a javascript based Google Map.
I am developing an application in which when the I enters an address ,I fetch latitude and longitude of that address and drop the pin.
But what I want is like I enter any business or address then a list of that search comes in google maps and multiple pins are dropped for that address.
I also want this feature to get include in my app but when I pass my address only one location comes not a list like it comes in google maps.
Please help me if anybody knows how google maps searches a couple of locations for that address
ex:- caribou coffee, chapel hil
Any suggestion will be highly appreciated
Thanks in advance!
This functionnality is provided by Google Places API.
If you are looking for an algorithm it's using the harvesine forumula or a quadtree data structure. A quadtree or a r-tree in maps applications most likely it uses a space-filling-curve to sort the quadtree. If you look for sfc I recommend a hilbert curve because it has better space fill quality but normally they uses a z-curve.
Is it possible to display nearby businesses in mapkit? If not, how else can that be done?
Is there a way to display by category - restaurant, retail, museums?
Also, I don't think displaying traffic flow is available. Can anyone confirm?
The current version of MapKit does not support such features.
It's main capabilities currently are:
a scrollable/zoomable map
reverse geocoding (get the address for some given lat/long coordinates)
add annotations (pins) at a given lat/long
show phone's current location
show Standard, Satellite, or Hybrid view
To display nearby businesses, you would have to:
query a third-party for that information which would ideally return lat/long coordinates
add annotations to the map using the returned coordinates
This is an interesting and emerging business idea!
I live in Nordic region and there is an open Mashups especially for sweden.
By open i mean, any one can request and get access to the content to find nearby Cafe / WiFi / Sushi restaurants etc..
BEGIN PLUG WARNING
Check my iphone application which fetches content from the mashups and display using MapKit!
END PLUG WARNING
And there is a commercial content provider called Info24 for nordic countries at the moment.
Like DyingCactus said, it's not currently possible without using your own calls to one of the mapping service providers. There are options available, though.
One of them is CloudMade. They have a good iPhone library and support almost all of your requirements.
Check out the API at Cloudmade.com
I know this thread is kind of old, but i figured out a free alternative to do what you are looking for, more or less. You just nee to tap into a maps.google.com service and get a kml or JSON output. I used KML (XML) becuase i found the filesize to be consistently smaller. I wrote a 3 part series on my blog about how to do this for anyone that is interested.
http://www.zen-sign.com/finding-business-listings-and-displaying-with-mapkit-part-1/
http://www.zen-sign.com/finding-business-listings-and-displaying-with-mapkit-part-2/
http://www.zen-sign.com/finding-business-listings-and-displaying-with-mapkit-part-3/
I've looked at Google's map API, which is all javascript and terribly slow on the iPhone. I then tried using the link option available at maps.google.com. That is fast but I can't see having much control over it. It also displays a little search box at the top of the map. Google's API says you must use maps in a website, which the iPhone isn't. I'm not sure about licensing for maps.google.com.
Urbanspoon's scope option does everything I want with maps in regards to displaying nearby businesses based on your location. Given the limited set of tools available for Google maps without mapkit, I don't know how they are doing it. It looks as though they have somehow integrated with mapkit. Clicking an annotation shows the callout and another click pushes a new view with details from that pin. Any ideas how this can be done?
-- EDIT --
Just to be clear, mapkit doesn't display surrounding businesses. That's the crux of the problem and I'm not sure how Urbanspoon got past it.
You can also use the Google AJAX Search API: http://code.google.com/apis/ajaxsearch/
It's a Javascript library, but for Flash, and other Non-Javascript environments, the API exposes a raw RESTful interface that returns JSON encoded results.
And within this API, what you want is the 'Local Search' if you are looking for nearby businesses based on the location.
Urbanspoon probably gets the data for the locations of nearby businesses via some other method than the MapKit API.
Then its likely that they use the MapKit API to display custom MapKit Annotations at those locations.
If you are looking for a business data provider you could look into yelp's API.