Easiest way of getting reverse geocoded current location from iOS

Question

I saw from another question here : Determine iPhone user's country that it is possible to get the current country the user of the iPhone is in.

And that is quite convenient for many uses. However, would it be possible to go even deeper and infer from iOS (if it has the information) which state or city the user is in as well?

I suppose reverse geocoding services would be the next step if things weren't possible.. Are there even such things as a reverse geocoding service you can hire for your app though?

Answer 1

MKReverseGeocoder is deprecated in iOS 5, now it's CLGeocoder

- (void)locationManager:(CLLocationManager *)manager didUpdateToLocation:(CLLocation *)newLocation fromLocation:(CLLocation *)oldLocation {
   [self.locationManager stopUpdatingLocation];

   CLGeocoder * geoCoder = [[CLGeocoder alloc] init];
   [geoCoder reverseGeocodeLocation:newLocation completionHandler:^(NSArray *placemarks, NSError *error) {
       for (CLPlacemark * placemark in placemarks) {
           .... = [placemark locality];
        }    
    }];
}

Answer 2

CLGeocoder *geocoder = [[CLGeocoder alloc] init];

CLLocation *newLocation = [[CLLocation alloc]initWithLatitude:21.1700
                                                    longitude:72.8300];

[geocoder reverseGeocodeLocation:newLocation
               completionHandler:^(NSArray *placemarks, NSError *error) {

                   if (error) {
                       NSLog(@"Geocode failed with error: %@", error);
                       return;
                   }

                   if (placemarks && placemarks.count > 0)
                   {
                       CLPlacemark *placemark = placemarks[0];

                       NSDictionary *addressDictionary =
                       placemark.addressDictionary;

                       NSLog(@"%@ ", addressDictionary);
                       NSString *address = [addressDictionary
                                            objectForKey:(NSString *)kABPersonAddressStreetKey];
                       NSString *city = [addressDictionary
                                         objectForKey:(NSString *)kABPersonAddressCityKey];
                       NSString *state = [addressDictionary
                                          objectForKey:(NSString *)kABPersonAddressStateKey];
                       NSString *zip = [addressDictionary 
                                        objectForKey:(NSString *)kABPersonAddressZIPKey];


                       NSLog(@"%@ %@ %@ %@", address,city, state, zip);
                   }

               }];

Result

{

  City = Surat;
  Country = India;
  CountryCode = IN;
  FormattedAddressLines =     (
    Surat,
    Gujarat,
    India
);
Name = Surat;
State = Gujarat;
} 
2012-12-20 21:33:26.284 CurAddress[4110:11603] (null) Surat Gujarat (null)

Answer 3

I would start with the CLReverseGeocoder class.

This stackoverflow question gets the current city and can probably be adapted for your use.

Answer 4

Following codes can be easy to retrieve full-details.

 [geocoder reverseGeocodeLocation:newLocation completionHandler:^(NSArray *placemarks, NSError *error) {
        if(placemarks.count){

        placeNameLabel.text = [placemarks[0] name];
        streetNumberLabel.text = [placemarks[0] subThoroughfare];
        streetLabel.text = [placemarks[0] thoroughfare];
        neighborhoodLabel.text = [placemarks[0] subLocality];
        cityLabel.text = [placemarks[0] locality];
        countyLabel.text = [placemarks[0] subAdministrativeArea];
        stateLabel.text = [placemarks[0] administrativeArea];    //or province 
        zipCodeLabel.text = [placemarks[0] postalCode];
        countryLabel.text = [placemarks[0] country];
        countryCodeLabel.text = [placemarks[0] ISOcountryCode];
        inlandWaterLabel.text = [placemarks[0] inlandWater];
        oceanLabel.text = [placemarks[0] ocean];
        areasOfInterestLabel.text = [placemarks[0] areasOfInterest[0]];
        }
    }];