If you need to show a map to your users in iOS, one way to accomplish this is to use the MKMapView class. Mix this with the MKMapViewDelegate and you have the ability to detect movement on the map, detect the state of the map such as failure loading it as well as several other items you can monitor.
In this tutorial we’ll add a map to the view, allow the current location of the phone to be zoomed to, and allow the user to switch between the different map types which are available meaning Standard, Satellite, and Hybrid. We will also learn how to implement a delegate method and have the map move each time the user moves.
MKMapView Tutorial
The first step is to create a Single View Application by opening Xcode and creating the new project. You can follow this tutorial if you are unsure how to create a new project. Make sure you select the language as Swift. You can uncheck unit tests, core data, and other optional extras.
Navigate to Main.storyboard and drag out a UIToolBar and seat it at the bottom of the view. Click the UIBarButtonItem (named Item) and rename the text attribute to “Current Location”. Drag out a Segment control and put that on the toolbar also. You might choose to use a flexible spacer between the button on the left and the segment to force them to the left and right edges of the toolbar. [Read more…]
The MKPointAnnotation is the basic version of an annotation that can be used to display a pin along with a title and subtitle. These can come in handy for displaying basic information on a map. If you want to do more than show a point on a map with a title, then you will need to use MKAnnotation and MKAnnotationView. We’ll look at both of those later in this tutorial. Note that you can change the pin as well and provide a custom image. I’ll show you how in the tutorial below.