Geolocation in iOS

Chapter 3. Map Kit

The Map Kit framework allows you to embed maps directly into your views, and provides support for annotating these maps and adding overlays. Along with the Core Location framework, it does all the heavy lifting involved in creating and displaying maps in your applications.

Adding a Map

Let’s add a map to the Location application you built in the previous chapter. Open up the application in Xcode. The first thing you need to do is add the Map Kit framework to your project. Click the project icon at the top of the Project pane in Xcode, click the main Target for the project, and then click the Build Phases tab. Finally, click the Link Binary with Libraries item to open up the list of linked frameworks, and click the + symbol to add a new framework. Select the MapKit.framework from the drop-down list and click the Add button to add the framework to your project.

Now click the Supporting Files group in Project navigator, and then click the Location_Prefix.pch file to open it in the standard editor. Instead of having to include the framework every time you need it (as you did in the last chapter), you can use this header file to import it into all the source files in the project, as highlighted in bold below:

#ifdef __OBJC__
    #import <Foundation/Foundation.h>
    #import  <UIKit/UIKit.h>
    #import <CoreLocation/CoreLocation.h>
    #import <MapKit/MapKit.h>
#endif

Once you’ve done that, make sure you’ve saved your changes and click on the ViewController.xib file to open it in Interface ...