Going offline with iOS 6 vector maps in progressive detail

Question

Reading Apple Insider's Going Offline with Vector Maps regarding progressive detail of iOS 6 maps available offline without manual configuration, can maps be programmatically cached upon app launch provided internet connectivity is available?

As in, can maps for a specific GPS coordinate be cached for offline content at various levels of detail without invoking or requiring interaction with a MkMapView?

Or, is this a built-in feature of MkMapView requiring user interaction to progressively increase level of detail on a specified location?

From Apple Insider's Going Offline with Vector Maps:

This vastly expanded new capability allows travelers to load detailed maps for a very large area and navigate around via GPS, which remains active even if you turn mobile roaming off (or lack wireless service in that location). Under iOS 5, it was tricky to maintain 2D cached map tiles for even significant part of a single city.

Answer 1

I had a similar need for offline mapping functions in an iOS app and I managed to solve it by turning to the Altus Mapping Engine. Now I'll say ahead of time that this is going to require you to do a lot of learning on things like setting up PostGIS, compiling OSM data and the like (not to mention the API isn't as friendly as MapKit) but it will allow you the following advantages over using MapKit:

• Embed completely custom vector maps with your app binary with your desired level of detail.
• Vastly improved performance since you don't need to fetch map tiles from a server.

It's not for everyone. But for the right use cases it can be pretty amazing.