Programmatically open Maps app in iOS 6

Question

Previous to iOS 6, opening a URL like this would open the (Google) Maps app:

NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:@"http://maps.google.com/?q=New+York"];
[[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL:url];

Now with the new Apple Maps implementation, this just opens Mobile Safari to Google Maps. How can I accomplish the same behavior with iOS 6? How do I programmatically open the Maps app and have it point to a specific location/address/search/whatever?

Answer 1

NSString *address = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@ %@ %@ %@"
                             ,[dataDictionary objectForKey:@"practice_address"]
                             ,[dataDictionary objectForKey:@"practice_city"]
                             ,[dataDictionary objectForKey:@"practice_state"]
                             ,[dataDictionary objectForKey:@"practice_zipcode"]];


        NSString *mapAddress = [@"http://maps.apple.com/?q=" stringByAppendingString:[address stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]];

        NSLog(@"Map Address %@",mapAddress);

        [objSpineCustomProtocol setUserDefaults:mapAddress :@"webSiteToLoad"];

        [self performSegueWithIdentifier: @"provider_to_web_loader_segue" sender: self];

//VKJ

Answer 2

Before launching url, remove any special character from the url and replace spaces by +. This will save you some headaches:

    NSString *mapURLStr = [NSString stringWithFormat: @"http://maps.apple.com/?q=%@",@"Limmattalstrasse 170, 8049 Zürich"];

    mapURLStr = [mapURLStr stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@" " withString:@"+"];
    NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:[mapURLStr stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding: NSUTF8StringEncoding]];
    if ([[UIApplication sharedApplication] canOpenURL:url]){
            [[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL:url];
        }

Answer 3

Found the answer to my own question. Apple documents its maps URL format here. It looks like you can essentially replace maps.google.com with maps.apple.com.

Update: It turns out that the same is true in MobileSafari on iOS 6; tapping a link to http://maps.apple.com/?q=... opens the Maps app with that search, the same way http://maps.google.com/?q=... did on previous versions. This works and is documented in the page linked above.

UPDATE: This answers my question relating to the URL format. But nevan king's answer here (see below) is an excellent summary of the actual Maps API.

Answer 4

Here is a class using nevan king's solution completed in Swift:

class func openMapWithCoordinates(theLon:String, theLat:String){

            var coordinate = CLLocationCoordinate2DMake(CLLocationDegrees(theLon), CLLocationDegrees(theLat))

            var placemark:MKPlacemark = MKPlacemark(coordinate: coordinate, addressDictionary:nil)

            var mapItem:MKMapItem = MKMapItem(placemark: placemark)

            mapItem.name = "Target location"

            let launchOptions:NSDictionary = NSDictionary(object: MKLaunchOptionsDirectionsModeDriving, forKey: MKLaunchOptionsDirectionsModeKey)

            var currentLocationMapItem:MKMapItem = MKMapItem.mapItemForCurrentLocation()

            MKMapItem.openMapsWithItems([currentLocationMapItem, mapItem], launchOptions: launchOptions)
}

Answer 5

Not using maps, just programmatically using a UiButton action, this worked great for me.

// Button triggers the map to be presented.

@IBAction func toMapButton(sender: AnyObject) {

//Empty container for the value

var addressToLinkTo = ""

//Fill the container with an address

self.addressToLinkTo = "http://maps.apple.com/?q=111 Some place drive, Oak Ridge TN 37830"

self.addressToLinkTo = self.addressToLinkTo.stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding(NSUTF8StringEncoding)!

let url = NSURL(string: self.addressToLinkTo)
UIApplication.sharedApplication().openURL(url!)

                }

You could spread some of this code out a bit. For example, I put the variable as a class level variable, had another function fill it, and then when pressed the button simply took what was in the variable and scrubbed it to be used in a URL.

Answer 6

I found it annoying that using the http://maps.apple.com?q=... link setup opens the safari browser first at older devices.

So for an iOS 5 device opening up your app with a reference to maps.apple.com the steps look like:

1. you click something in the app and it refers to the maps.apple.com url
2. safari opens up the link
3. the maps.apple.com server redirects to the maps.google.com url
4. the maps.google.com url gets interpreted and opens the google Maps app.

I think that the (very obvious and confusing) steps 2 and 3 are annoying to users. Therefore i check the os version and either run maps.google.com or maps.apple.com on the device (for resp. ios 5 or ios 6 OS versions).