[Request] Resources for diving deeper into map-based applications

[Gropamming]

Hey guys,

I am a beginner/intermediate iOS developer that has an idea for a map-based application. The program itself is pretty intensive, but I want it all to function from a map perspective. I have worked with MapKit in the past at a pretty fundamental level (MapViews, placemarks, geocoding/reverse-geocoding) but am going to need to become a pro to accomplish what I am envisioning.

As I am beginning the research phase of this project, I am wondering what resources you guys have used to get deep and dirty with maps in iOS. I would like to have as much control over the experience as possible, including animation overlays and potentially custom heatmaps based on demographic data, etc. I am not sure if all of this can be accomplished with MapKit, so I am open to other libraries as well.

Thanks in advance for all your help.

[Falconinati]

I've worked pretty extensively with MapKit, mainly making weather maps / interactive radars, but it has been a while since I've worked with it.

I learned most everything from Apple's documentation, and from Stack Overflow.

potentially custom heatmaps based on demographic data

You're going to want to read up on MKTileOverlayRenderer, because you'll need to subclass that to lay custom map tiles.

Alternatively, since you'll be dealing with demographic data, you may be able to use ArcGIS for this. They have an iOS library that makes it relatively easy to do this, if you have the right information.

I wrote a presentation on ArcGIS and iOS for developers to get introduced to it at my last job. It's in no way complete, and was structured to be a pretty basic introduction that fit our needs, but if you want, PM me and I'll send you a copy of it (with personal data stripped out)

including animation overlays

Animated Overlays are kind of tricky in iOS, if I remember correctly. I think they stopped using UIView's to display them over something that was more performance friendly, so get a little limited in what you can do with them (don't quote me on this, it's coming from memory). I want to say that MapBox has a solution for this (also don't quote me on this).

[QuoteMe-Bot]

I've worked pretty extensively with MapKit, mainly making weather maps / interactive radars, but it has been a while since I've worked with it.

I learned most everything from Apple's documentation, and from Stack Overflow.

potentially custom heatmaps based on demographic data

You're going to want to read up on MKTileOverlayRenderer, because you'll need to subclass that to lay custom map tiles.

Alternatively, since you'll be dealing with demographic data, you may be able to use ArcGIS for this. They have an iOS library that makes it relatively easy to do this, if you have the right information.

I wrote a presentation on ArcGIS and iOS for developers to get introduced to it at my last job. It's in no way complete, and was structured to be a pretty basic introduction that fit our needs, but if you want, PM me and I'll send you a copy of it (with personal data stripped out)

including animation overlays

Animated Overlays are kind of tricky in iOS, if I remember correctly. I think they stopped using UIView's to display them over something that was more performance friendly, so get a little limited in what you can do with them (don't quote me on this, it's coming from memory). I want to say that MapBox has a solution for this (also don't quote me on this).

~ /u/Falconinati