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Mapbox iOS SDK

This tree of the Mapbox iOS SDK is deprecated in favor of the Mapbox GL-based 2.0.0 and above. The future of Mapbox maps is vector rendering, and 2.0.0 is a rewrite based on OpenGL ES and vector rendering.

Based on the Route-Me iOS map library (Alpstein fork) with Mapbox customizations.

Requires iOS 5 or greater (includes iOS 7+ support at runtime), Xcode 5.0 or greater, and ARC.

Major differences from Alpstein fork of Route-Me:

  • Requires iOS 5.0 and above.
  • Supports Automatic Reference Counting (ARC).
  • Mapbox & MBTiles tile source integration code.
  • Mapbox Markers support.
  • UTFGrid interactivity.
  • Improved network tile loading performance.
  • A bulk, background map tile downloader for cache pre-population and offline use.
  • Annotation callouts that behave like MapKit.
  • Annotation convenience subclasses for points and shapes.
  • Prepackaged static library.
  • CocoaPods support.
  • Removal of two-finger double-tap gesture for zoom out (to speed up two-finger single-tap recognition like MapKit).
  • Different default starting location for maps.
  • Built-in attribution view controller with button on map views & default OpenStreetMap attribution.
  • Easy static map view support.
  • Removal of included example projects in favor of separate examples on GitHub.
  • A few added defaults for convenience.
  • Improved documentation.

Route-Me

Route-Me is an open source map library that runs natively on iOS. It’s designed to look and feel much like the built-in iOS map library, but it’s entirely open, and works with any map source using a pluggable backend system.

Supported map tile sources include Mapbox/TileStream, the offline-capable, database-backed format MBTiles, OpenStreetMap, and several others.

Please note that you are responsible for getting permission to use the map data, and for ensuring your use adheres to the relevant terms of use.

Installation

There are three ways that you can install the SDK, depending upon your needs:

  1. Clone from GitHub and integrate as a dependent Xcode project.
  2. Use the static library. Link it in your project, add #import <Mapbox/Mapbox.h>, and additionally, include the -ObjC linker flag.
  3. Install via CocoaPods.

More detailed information on the installation options is available in the SDK guide.

The two main branches of the GitHub repository are pretty self-explanatory: release and develop. When we tag a release, we also merge develop over to release, except in the case of minor point releases (e.g., 0.4.2), where we might just bring over a fix or two from develop.

Then, update the submodules:

  git submodule update --init

Some example apps showing usage of the SDK (with screenshots):

More documentation and examples are available here: http://mapbox.com/mapbox-ios-sdk-legacy/

There are two subdirectories - MapView and Proj4. Proj4 is a support library used to do map projections. The MapView project contains only the Route-Me map library.

See License.txt for license details. In any app that uses this SDK, include the following text on your “preferences” or “about” screen: “Uses Mapbox iOS SDK, © 2008-2014 Mapbox and Route-Me Contributors”. Your data provider will have additional attribution requirements.

News, Support and Contributing

Complete API documentation is available online or as an Xcode docset Atom feed.

We have a basic technical overview along with the installation instructions.

Mapbox has an IRC channel on irc.freenode.net in #mapbox.

To report bugs and help fix them, please use the issue tracker.

Dependent Libraries

The Mapbox iOS SDK makes use of several sub-libraries, listed below. See License.txt for more detailed information about Route-Me and Proj4 and see the individual license files in the sub-libraries for more information on each.

  • FMDB by Gus Mueller (SQLite for caching and MBTiles)
  • GRMustache by Gwendal RouĂ© (Mustache templates)
  • SMCalloutView by Nick Farina (annotation callouts)

Class References

Protocol References

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