I'm developing an app that will focus heavily on giving users routes and turn-by-turn directions while driving. It is important that they stay within the app during their drive, so I really don't want to make them leave the app and go to the built-in Maps app. I have been doing a lot of research lately on how to include this functionality, and it is widely known that it is not easy, since Apple doesn't include this functionality in the SDK out of the box. It looks like my options are:
For providing routes (and directions) from one place to another
Use a UIWebView and load some web-based maps with JavaScript, and use the JavaScript API to draw a route
Use MapKit or the Google Maps iOS SDK, query for the route sepaartely through an API, and manually draw some kind of path or polyline on top of it.
Use a library that costs money (like MTDirectionsKit)
For providing turn-by-turn navigation
Use a proprietary library that comes with its own maps (like CloudMade)
Is there anything I'm missing here? What are the pros and cons of each, and how should I pick a solution?
Your insight is greatly appreciated. Thanks!
You say that you don't want to "make" the user leave the app and use the built in software for turn by turn navigation as though this is a bad user experience. A bad user experience would be getting forced to use a turn by turn nav from a webView or some API which would not show up as routing information on my lock screen if I lock the phone or cut into other applications to display banners telling me a turn is coming up, for example, while I'm listening to music on my phone. I strongly suggest you launch Apple maps and let the system handle what it is meant to handle instead of trying to build your own turn by turn navigation and heavily limiting the user from the freedom of exiting the application during a drive.
While on the subject of commercial libraries you might what to take a look at other options:
skobbler/telenav sdk - in-app routing and turn-by-turn navigation based on OpenStreetMap (same maps used by Cloudmade and Mapquest). Check out the demos and the licensing plans and figure out if it's the correct solution for you
(they have a Free Tier that might be good enough for your app - and if you go above that tier I think you should be considering monetizing you app)
and that's about it for the time being (besides the options already named): keep an eye out for Mapbox as they could provide an iOS sdk in the near future - with routing and navigation
I agree with Kris' response. Turn-by-turn navigation is probably best handled by the built-in app. However, for displaying a route and ETA on a 2D map, I think I'm going to go with the Mapquest iOS API, which offers this functionality for free. I didn't know this solution was available until today.
I've noticed that the maps app integrated in iOS can show the traffic, but is there a way to do that using MKMapView? or that functionality only appears in that app?.
Any help please?
The data Apple uses appears to be sourced from TomTom and others. If you can find an API that provides traffic data, you can use a MKPolyline to render the data.
As far as I know you can't show the traffic information using the MK framework.
To achieve the results you want I would offer to use the third party resources, Google Maps API for example, and use UIWebView to present a customized map. Google Maps JavaScript API v3 TrafficLayer
I am totally confused with google maps and maps of iPhone...
i have read that iPhone uses google maps.....and also spent some time on it....
But it never display the items like location pictures, balloons etc.
EDIT
THIS is photo for of browser
and following is same place for iPhone maps
second one did not show the annotation added by people.....
(this is what i was asking for ballons or other pictures which people adds to location on oogle maps)
I want to display all those in my application....
what should i do...
if you suggests implement Google maps API, then please suggest a working link...or provide some sample code if possible.....if anybody has done it...then please mail me at yogeshkumau#gmail.com
waiting for answer......
Points of Interests(location, pictures and baloons) that you are talking about can be shown in your maps, if you acquire the license for Google maps premier api. In that case you'd have to use dynamic maps by using google's web services. However if you want to implement it using MapKit framework on iOS devices, you'd have to draw your custom POIs using core graphics.
Apple has a special agreement with Google to use their maps on their platform. The internet is packed with examples of usage of MKMapView along with annotations (pins, there're no baloons on iPhone).
I have been doing some research on using maps in iPhone applications and it looks like most of my needs can be met passing KML data into the built-in google maps application, but I cannot seem to set the same values (phone, home page, address) that are available when performing a built-in search in the maps application. Does anyone know if there is any way to set those values, or what fields are available?
UPDATE: With the advent of the 3.0 OS and the Map API, applications no longer need to pass control to the built-in map application, so this question is no longer relevant.
KML is not officially supported by Apple as of now. It's specified in the URL schemes documentation. Any URL in the ?q= parameter will be ignored.
There are few options available for iPhone developers planning to use Google Maps in their software. I've seen sample code and implementations of WebKit that translates gestures to Google Maps loaded inside it, but performance is dismal at best. Doing a static map without a lot of zooming or scrolling is pretty much the only performance-preserving option until a native API is available.
Take a look at Developing Virtual Earth iPhone Applications with Objective-C
I've been doing mobile app development for a long time (2001?), but the systems we worked with back then were dedicated mobile development environments (Symbian, J2ME, BREW). iPhone SDK is a curious hybrid of Mac OS X and Apple's take on mobile (Cocoa Touch).
But it is missing some stuff that other mobile systems have, IMO. Specifically:
Application background processing
SMS/MMS application routing (send an SMS to my application in the background)
API for accessing phone functions/call history/call interception
I realize that Apple has perfectly valid reasons for releasing the SDK the way they did. I am curious what people on SO think the SDK is missing and how would they go about fixing/adding it, were they an Engineering Product Manager at Apple.
The biggest shortcoming in my opinion is support for separating licensing from distribution.
What I mean by this is that it should be possible to download a trial version of an application and later purchase a license for that application (from an API call inside the application or from the app store). This would make it much easier to try-before-you-buy and get rid of the current duplicates of many applications with 'lite' versions.
I think lack of push notifications for apps is the big thing we're missing right now. With push, you can register your application to perform a task (like getting the most recent data from a web service) even when it's not running, at a time and frequency the OS decides is best. In an ideal world, along with the existing concept of iPhone apps loading quickly and resuming where you last left off, this solves the problem of not running in the background. I know some tasks will be more difficult or maybe impossible with this strategy, but it's still a pretty good compromise between third party applications and the iPhone's limited hardware.
Originally push was scheduled for last September, but it was removed from the beta SDK and not spoken of since then.
API's I'm personally looking for:
Apple80211 as a public API (private, current API is fine if documented)
Access to Volume buttons (semi-accessible via Celestial, private, needs new API)
Access to Calendar (private, API status unknown)
Access to Bluetooth + SPP profile (status unknown)
Access to Camera (directly, API status unknown)
Access to JavaScript runtime (directly, not through UIWebView, API status unknown)
WebKit access that's lower-level than UIWebView (private, current API is fine)
Access to Music Library (private, current API is fine)
Garbage Collection.
CoreData is missing.
You've mentioned some of the big ones - copy & paste (or in fact any way for apps to collaborate) is another huge omission.
It also seems to lack a desktop synch framework (at least if it exists I can't find it).
Language independence and especially lack of scripting is another pet peeve - objective-c is all very well but more languages to choose from would be good.
Inability to dynamically extend apps, via scripts or otherwise, is another big omission. This is partly an SDK/OS issue, partly licensing.
My list ordered by priority:
Mapping abstraction (the MapKit looks awesome), but that would require a new Google Maps TOS
Music library
Camera (photo + video) Access to more
UIViews, Apple designed some pretty nice custom ones for their apps
Better UIWebKit abstraction
The features I see missing that it should have is
Access to SMS
Direct Access to Google Maps App. You should be able have access to this so you could extend your application to use the built in features provided by Google Maps.
Access to the Bluetooth functionality of the phone.
Access to the Calendar. Why not allow access to simply post a calendar event for the user.
Access to Active Sync. It would great if we could directly access this and communicate back to the Exchange Server.
Core Image. They provide Core Animation but Core Image is missing. I hope that this is added to the API soon.
These are some of the features that my clients have access for in the past and are supprised when they are not available.
We definitely miss a Calendar API and SMS access. So many applications could leverage such APIs. The iPhone allows users to have everything in their pocket, but it's almost useless as long as developers cannot leverage this integration in their apps.
A language with proper namespaces.
A limitation that bugs me is lack of access to system features that require root or setuid. For example: opening privileged IP ports.
I'm not sure there is a good solution to this, as long as Apple's policy is to keep the device locked-down.
Allow program to set some kind of local timed event for your application to bring up an alert and launch your app if the user agrees (like any calendar app). You could do that with push notifications but there are many cases I'd hate to have to rely on a whole server infrastructure and network connectivity just to basically do some timed thing.
Some idea of what direction the user is facing. I cannot believe the GPS chip the newer iPhones use are not capable of reporting direction.
I would personally love to see
Access to the CoreTelephony Framework (Currently private). Which allows access to all the phone functions (Especially sending MMS / SMS).
Some sort of ability to run stuff in the background. While push notifications is ok for most things, but it is a bit hard to leverage CoreLocation (i.e. have the app show a notification at a certain location). Of course this would probably need an on/off button or app specific like push is.
animation view which will be reduce developer to make a cool app , of course the core business local still need consider more , but the view layer could more easy to use ....