Question

I have created an app that simply shows the user’s current position on a google map using the MapKit.

However I would now like to go a bit further and add a bit more functionality to the app by allowing the user to plot points on the map themselves.

I somehow believe using CoreLocation will accomplish this by receiving and saving coordinates of where the user selects on the map.

Am I right in saying this? and any ideas on how I would implement this? Links or tutorials would be helpful too, and also any personal experience/ideas in the matter would be great.

I have created an app that implements coreLocation before this app, compiled/ran perfectly.. just didnt update user location and latitude/longitude. the code is shown below for that app:

This is only in the AppDelegate.m which is what does all the work basically.

#import "AppDelegate.h"
#import "ViewController.h"

@implementation AppDelegate

@synthesize window;
@synthesize viewController;
@synthesize locationManager;

- (BOOL)application:(UIApplication *)application didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:(NSDictionary *)launchOptions
{
    return YES;
}

- (void)applicationWillResignActive:(UIApplication *)application
{
}

- (void)applicationDidEnterBackground:(UIApplication *)application
{
}

- (void)applicationWillEnterForeground:(UIApplication *)application
{
}

- (void)applicationDidBecomeActive:(UIApplication *)application
{
    self.locationManager = [[CLLocationManager alloc]init];
    if ([CLLocationManager locationServicesEnabled]) {
        self.locationManager.delegate = self;
        self.locationManager.distanceFilter = 100;
        [self.locationManager startUpdatingLocation];
    }
}

- (void)applicationWillTerminate:(UIApplication *)application
{
}

#pragma mark CLLocationManagerDelegate Methods

-(void) locationManager:(CLLocationManager *)manager didUpdateToLocation:(CLLocation *)newLocation fromLocation:(CLLocation *)oldLocation{
    MKCoordinateSpan span;
    span.latitudeDelta = 0.2;
    span.longitudeDelta = 0.2;

    MKCoordinateRegion region;
    region.span = span;
    region.center = newLocation.coordinate;

    [viewController.mapView setRegion:region animated:YES];
    viewController.mapView.showsUserLocation = YES;

    viewController.latitude.text = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%f", newLocation.coordinate.latitude];
    viewController.latitude.text = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%f", newLocation.coordinate.longitude];
}

@end

Answer 1

Are you a signed up iOS developer? Apple’s code samples include a few map apps, they should get you started.

Since you’re not having any luck while searching for tutorials online here are some terms that might help

MKAnnotation : What you’d use to mark a location on the map (a pin, a flag, a bit of text)
UIGestureRecognizer : Use one of these to find out when a user has touched the map, look for touch-and-hold events as a good sign they want to mark it because touch-and-drag would be for moving the map around
MKMapPoint : A place on a flat map of earth as used in iOS. Remember that these are different from CLLocationCoordinate2D’s longitude and latitude but you can easily convert between them.