What’s new you ask?  Primarily two things.  First, we overhauled the touch interaction with the map.  This includes vast improvement to pinch zoom, as well as the expected defaults of double tap to zoom in and two finger tap to zoom out. The easiest way to check these improvements out are by downloading our Flash Maps API Showcase app in either iTunes or Android Marketplace.  If you want to see how it was built, you can download the sample mobile map application source code.

Second, we upgraded our API to the recently released Adobe Flash Builder 4.6.  Adobe played Santa early this year and stuffed their latest release with a number of nice goodies. The addition of native extensions allows you to complement your Flash Builder app with native code, allowing you to access native features of mobile platforms that were unavailable before.  Also, for those who have griped about having to separately download AIR when installing a Flash Builder built application, the new captive runtime feature alleviates that concern.  In addition to these features, Adobe introduced several new mobile components that will provide even more options when designing your perfect app.

For many ardent Adobe developers, the name Dev Girl has a special place in our hearts.  My personal first experience with Holly’s wisdom was when I was trying to navigate the iTunes app store submission process. Holly, my wife and kids thank you for the extra 8 to 10 hours they got to spend with me rather than hearing daddy scream at his computer.

Holly helped fix some issues we faced during development, and has since written a nice overview piece on developing with our Mobile Flash Maps API.  I encourage you to check it out and follow her blog, as I guarantee she will save you development time down the road.  Thanks for all the help Holly!

In addition to our new transactional limits (or lack thereof!) we wanted to clarify where and how you can use our APIs with a Community Edition license.  You CAN develop paid mobile applications for app stores using our Community Edition licenses.  You can also use SSL.

For all the details, check out the following Map API Licensing and Terms Overview.  Also check out the Terms of Use for all the legal specifics.  I’ve included the handy chart available from the overview below.  Head over to the MapQuest Developer Network to sign up for a free map API key and start developing!

	ENTERPRISE	COMMUNITY
	Licensed Data	Licensed Data	Open Data
Maps	(No preset limit)*	(No preset limit)*	(No preset limit)*
Directions	(No preset limit)*	(5000 calls/day)	(No preset limit)*
Geocoding	(No preset limit)*	(5000 calls/day)	(No preset limit)*
Search	(No preset limit)*	(5000 calls/day)	(No preset limit)*
Route Matrix	(No preset limit)*	(5000 route pairs/day)
Traffic **
Non-Commercial or Public Web Apps
Non-Commercial or Public Mobile Apps
Private and/or Paid Commercial Web Apps
Paid Mobile Apps
SSL
Forum Support
Premium Support(24/7 Phone & Email Support)
System Performance Levels
Account Management

* MapQuest operates a shared service and reserves the right to limit access to prevent service degradation.  Please contact MapQuest to discuss applications with heavy traffic volume expectations.

** The Traffic API Web Service cannot be used for real-time navigation, in conjunction with in-car or stand alone portable navigation devices, or be used as the primary purpose of your website or application.

The SplitViewNavigator in Flash Builder 4.6

Hello from cloudy and cool Los Angeles! Adobe MAX has been humming along so far and there’s a lot of excitement about the types of mobile applications possible with Adobe Flash Builder 4.5, as well as the improvements coming with Flash Builder 4.6.  Naturally with mobile apps come mapping, directions, traffic and more, and so far we’ve seen a warm welcome to our new Mobile Flash Maps API.

I set out at MAX to determine sentiment around the overall Flash Builder foray into mobile applications. The folks I spoke with were generally pleased and excited by the possibilities of coding once and deploying everywhere, not the least of which, significant cost savings. I had forgotten how much people love Flash Builder as a tool to design, build and debug applications – when compared with developing in other web languages, Flash really spoils you.

As far as actual mobile applications built with Flash Builder 4.5 in the market, the most notable is Politico. However, several folks I spoke with were in active development on some new apps, so the next 3-6 months should be interesting to watch.

The pre-release of Flash Builder 4.6 has generated a stir, most notably with the performance enhancements, native extensions, new mobile components and an improved deployment for Android so that users don’t have to separately install AIR. These first two features should really close the gap between what a Flash-built native app can do versus a natively coded app.

From my perspective, it’s exciting to be on the forefront of a technology that has such great potential. I’m pleased to see the features Adobe has in 4.6, as they match up well with MapQuest’s roadmap. (We’re trying to keep up with several great features of our own planned in the next several months.)

On a related note, we have a cool demo to share from WebMapSolutions. While we’ve built our own demo application (which Android users can install directly from Android Market), the good folks at WebMapSolutions have been working on several of their own. Check out the following video they put together of one of their apps.

Just a reminder, tomorrow (Wednesday, Oct. 5) at 10 a.m. we’ll do a deeper dive into the capabilities of the API and what’s next in our Unconference panel.