Can I use my own tiles in MapKit, instead of Google's?

Question

I'm currently trying to decide wether to accept a client's proposal or not. Basically, I'm asked to create a MapView that displays markers at several locations on a map, with the additional requirement that the client's own map tiles are used instead of Google Maps'.

I do not know yet how the client stores their own map tiles, but I was assured that I'd be able to convert them into any format I'd need.

• Is it possible to use different map tiles in MapKit's MapView?
• Do you have good online literature about this? Links please?

If this is possible, I'd propably have to create a server that sends the files to the device.

• How hard is it to create such a server? Is it just "setup apache, done." or is there more to it?

• How hard, or time-consuming would both these things be, in relation to just setting up a normal MapView?

Thanks for your answers.

Answer 1

Have you looked at alternate map frameworks on the iPhone? I know there is at least one open source map engine, also with tiles (that are not as good as the Google tiles, but hey).

A decent set of them is here:

Creating an IPhone Map application

Answer 2

The "easiest" way to do this within the Google Map framework is simply to map the client's map as a texture on top of the "ground." You can create textures at different resolutions, for different zoom factors. Then you won't need to do any special coding at all --- everything will just work.

The way you do this is with a KML region that maps to ground level.

See: http://earth.google.com/outreach/tutorial_region.html

Answer 3

You can't use custom tiles with MapKit. You're limited to using the ones provided by Google.

It could be easier to create a "Google Maps-ish" web app that uses the custom titles and can be viewed on the iPhone through UIWebView?