Looking for Geocoding / Mapping advice for iPad development

Question

Some friends of mine and I are developing an app for rural service providers in our state to take their lists of customers' addresses and plot them onto a pannable map to not only display the locations, but to interact with the database information stored on our servers as well (updates from service calls, deliveries, sales, etc.).

We are new to iPad development (two of us are familiar with Android development but the potential clients are invested in iOS technology), and we have run into a geocoding quandary. It seems that our plans for geocoding would either run afoul Google's geocoding / maps APIs, or require that hefty $10,000 business license.

As a workaround, we've been thinking about hosting an Open Street Map tile server for one village as a demonstration piece for sales purposes, and dealing with any commercial licensing if and when the product is successful.

I guess my question is out of ignorance. Does anyone have experience creating native, for-profit iOS apps that utilize Google Maps APIs (maps, directions, geolocating)? If so, is Google the best suite of tools, or would another engine be a better fit (Bing, MapQuest, Yahoo!)? Is there another better, simpler, more elegant solution to getting these locations on the map?

Thanks for any insight you can provide.

Answer 1

I work at SmartyStreets where we maintain a geocoding (and verification) API called LiveAddress. I figure you're running into TOS and volume limits with Google/Bing/etc APIs. LiveAddress has a much more flexible TOS.

I'm aware of several very prominent iOS developers which use LiveAddress with their apps in the app store and have found it to be very worthwhile. Keep in mind that unlike regular geocoding APIs, LiveAddress will confirm the validity and completeness of the address instead of approximating it, while returning only valid suggestions if needed. This will help ensure that only high-quality data goes into your database and thus, into your customers' hands.

As Jesse mentioned, iOS 6 has some spiffy new maps built-in, so you may consider looking into using those. I'm not sure what the implications are as far as availability and licensing, maybe there aren't any since it's so proprietary to just iOS devices. Let me know what you find, I'd be interested to know!

Answer 2

MapQuest offers an iOS Maps API, which allows you to choose between 'regular' MapQuest tiles that are generated from licensed (commercial) data sources, or, the MapQuest-OSM tiles that are free and generated from OpenStreetMap data. The iOS Maps API was in beta for the past few months, but the first production version of the API was just released.

As far as geocoding is concerned, a MapQuest Enterprise Solutions account manager could answer those questions and possibly quote you a price for an enterprise license if it is needed for what you would like to accomplish with your app. Enterprise licenses provide an SLA, Technical Support, etc. I believe the Community Edition license (free, but licensed data - not OpenStreetMap data) allows for 5,000 geocodes per day.

The forums on the MapQuest Developer Network are also a good resource for finding answers to questions about the iOS Maps API, so be sure to take a look!

Hope this information is helpful!