What's the best way to do a mapping application for the iPhone

Question

So I'm looking at writing an iPhone application that shows things on a map. What frameworks/methodologies are out there for doing this?

Searching around on Google, I could only find this one: http://code.google.com/p/iphone-google-maps-component/

Which according to the issues list is slow, and stops working after a while. Does anyone know of something better, or have any experience with the library above?

Answer 1

I'm pretty sure your only options for now are:

1. Call openURL: to switch to the Maps app
2. Use the Google Maps component you linked to
3. Roll your own thing
4. Wait for Apple to expose a "MapKit" framework

Answer 2

WARNING: Embedding Google Maps inside an application may violate the Google Maps terms of service.

I have written a full mapping UIView on the iPhone (the application is on the AppStore) and it is not easy (this would be option #3 "Roll your own thing"). Getting good performance is really difficult. I would like to OpenSource my map component but right now the F-NDA is preventing that.

Answer 3

I have been chasing this for a while now, and here's the best solution I've found out there:

http://code.google.com/p/touchcode/

There is a component in there called TouchMap and it comes with a demo that shows it off. It's tiles are loaded directly from Microsoft Virtual Earth.

Edit: @schwa, I just a look at your profile to find your email address, and then realised that you actually released this software. Nice work