Route demarcation in iPhone apps?

[Fayyazuddin Syed]

I am currently learning to use the MapKit API in developing iPhone apps, and I want to know if it is possible to show a path from point A to point B on a map application on the iPhone? I am working on a basic app right that shows the user the closest specialty restaurants to the user, and would like to be able to show the user the shortest route. Is this possible?

Thanks in advance.
Sincerely;
Fayyaz

[Brandon Trebitowski]

Fayyazuddin,

The routing you see in the maps app comes from the Google Maps API on the web.

Check out this great tutorial on it here:

http://blog.kadirpekel.com/2010/05/30/drawing_routes_onto_mkmapview_using_unofficial_google_maps_directions_api/

I have downloaded and played with the sample app and it seems to do exactly what you need.

Another option would be to simply open up the path in the Maps app.

// Snippet from http://stackoverflow.com/questions/576768/how-to-invoke-iphone-maps-for-directions-with-current-location-as-start-address
CLLocationCoordinate2D currentLocation = [self getCurrentLocation];
   NSString* address = @"123 Main St., New York, NY, 10001";
   NSString* url = [NSString stringWithFormat: @"http://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=%f,%f&daddr=%@",
                    currentLocation.latitude, currentLocation.longitude,
                    [address stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]];
   [[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL: [NSURL URLWithString: url]];

Cheers!

[Fayyazuddin Syed]

Thanks very much for that amazing tutorial. You are a gentleman, and a scholar!

Take care.
Sincerely;
Fayyaz

[Pratik Goswami]

Fayyazuddin Syed wrote:I am currently learning to use the MapKit API in developing iPhone apps, and I want to know if it is possible to show a path from point A to point B on a map application on the iPhone? I am working on a basic app right that shows the user the closest specialty restaurants to the user, and would like to be able to show the user the shortest route. Is this possible?

As well there are other third party libraries are available for map.
You can use RouteMe, CloudMade for different Map tiles, if you are interested.

Thanks
Pratik Goswami