Dual road shields, improved city labeling and coastline trimming

The most noticeable improvement is the addition of terrain, but there are quite a few other style-related improvements that we’re excited to announce as well:

• Support for dual road shields
• Improved road shield spacing
• Improved road shield density per zoom level
• Improved city styles
• Improved tunnel styles
• Improved coastline trimming

Did you know that MapQuest started offering tiles based on OpenStreetMap data back in 2010? Since then, we’ve expanded our Open data offerings to include a number of APIs – all of which are free to anyone who would like to use them. Unlike our licensed data offerings, MapQuest-OSM tiles are available for direct access and can be consumed by other mapping toolkits, such as Leaflet and OpenLayers.

Have questions or need help getting started with using MapQuest-OSM tiles? Feel free to check out the Open Initiatives – Tiles forum on the MapQuest Developer Network or tweet us. We love to hear from developers who are using our tiles and APIs!

Terrain and improved tunnel styling

I’m sure you have heard the buzz about iOS 6, Apple Maps, and alternatives to Apple Maps; in fact, at this point, I would be surprised if you haven’t! While this topic was dominating the headlines, the MapQuest mobile development team was busy putting the finishing touches on the next release of the Android Maps API. Version 1.0.4 is available for download today and includes the following bug fixes and enhancements:

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed an issue related to map tiles not showing up in certain situations
• Fixed a bug in default route narrative rendering
• Fixed alignment issues and a bug when setting focus on an item in an ItemizedOverlay

Enhancements:

• Added the option to turn off auto-starting of guidance and the ability to use custom messaging instead of the default prompt in MapQuestAppLauncher
• Added the ability to customize the background loading tile
• Added the ability for a MyLocation overlay to use a plain Drawable instead of a BitmapDrawable to more easily customize the marker
• Made drawing more efficient for larger sets of points in a LineOverlay
• Changed the pointer height and width calculations to allow for customization in an AnnotationView
• Removed enforcement of subclassing of MapActivity when using maps

The Android Maps API is designed to be a drop-in replacement for the existing mapping framework included with the Android operating system and includes many of the features MapQuest is known for, such as integrated maps and driving directions, geocoding, and the ability to switch between licensed and open data.

We always like to hear about the great apps that you’ve built with our APIs, so if you’ve built something using the Android Maps API and want us to feature it, let us know by tweeting us @MapQuestTech!

MapQuest first began offering products and services based on data from OpenStreetMap back in July 2010, and today we’re extremely proud to be announcing a slew of updates to our Open APIs – all of which are still available for free and without any limit on transactions!

Open JavaScript Maps API v7.0

Multipoint routing using the Open JavaScript API v7.0

Open Aerial Tiles
For those of you looking to add aerial imagery to your application, you’ll be happy to learn the MapQuest Open Aerial Tiles have been fully integrated into the API. The tiles are composed only of imagery in the public domain (or released under similar licenses) and can be used for any purpose without any restrictions.

Geolocation Control
As the name indicates, this new control can be used to detect the user’s location and automatically re-center the map. A custom handler can also be added to perform a task, such as getting directions to the nearest ice cream shop after the user has been geolocated.

Increased Mobile Support
A major focus for the v7.0 release was to significantly improve performance and functionality on mobile devices. Key bug fixes were made in order to better handle touch events and increase support for pop-up InfoWindows and other popular features.

Many, many more upgrades are still to come, but we think you’ll love all the enhancements we’ve already made! We strongly encourage you to switch to the new Open JavaScript API v7.0 and check out the much improved Developer’s Guide.

Open Geocoding API

One obstacle with using OpenStreetMap has always been geocoding, but the new Open Geocoding API (our first stab at releasing a first-rate open geocoder) allows users to geocode, reverse geocode and batch geocode addresses. Powered by Nominatim, the Open Geocoding API makes it possible for users to specify which country to search, which city to search, and use other advanced specifications to further refine their request.

Basic Geocode Request:
http://open.mapquestapi.com/geocoding/v1/address?location=Lancaster,PA

Advanced Geocode Request:
http://open.mapquestapi.com/geocoding/v1/address?json={location:{city:”Portland”,state:”OR”}}

To learn more about the API, including information about returning the geocode quality and static map thumbnails in the response, be sure to read the Open Geocoding Developer’s Guide. If you also have suggestions on how we can improve the service, please let us know!

Open Directions API, Open Guidance API & Open Static Map API

Continuing with the geocoding theme, both the Open Directions API and Open Guidance API now support addresses as their input.

Example:
http://open.mapquestapi.com/directions/v1/route?from=Lancaster,PA&to=York,PA&ambiguities=ignore

The Open Static Map API has also been updated to support address locations when making a getplacemap request.

Example:
http://open.mapquestapi.com/staticmap/v4/getplacemap?location=1090 N Charlotte St, Lancaster, PA&size=500,300&type=map&zoom=17&showicon=red_1

(Note to current Open Static Map users: please switch to v4 as v3 has been deprecated).

All the above geocoding capabilities, as well as the Open JavaScript API v7.0 we announced today, help add an incredible new level of depth to our APIs. It’s a truly significant step towards advancing the MapQuest Open APIs into becoming not only the most unique and disruptive mapping API available, but also a legitimate competitor against other paid solutions.

We owe many thanks to the OpenStreetMap community for contributing their time and efforts to the project, and we hope you share with us all the creative ways in which you use our APIs!

Have questions or comments? Please post them on our forums or on Twitter @MapQuestTech and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can. Thank you and enjoy!

Check out our Developer Network today to sign up for a Community Edition license, get access to technical information, blog posts, forums and more.

We also offer our MapQuest Enterprise Edition for businesses that are looking for technical support, a service level agreement, geocoding only licenses and a whole bunch of other benefits. Call us (888-627-7837) or fill out our online form and one of our mapping gurus will reach out to discuss what might work best for you and your business. If you’re not sure whether Community or Enterprise is the best option for you, you can check out our Ts&Cs or just reach out to us and we can help you work thru that too.

p.s. Seriously, if you don’t love free, tweet hashtag #MapQuestTech – we’ll send the first 50 of you a free t-shirt to convince you.

Developers who are using the MapQuest Flash Maps API may have noticed recent changes to the MapQuest Flash Samples Explorer application. The Samples Explorer application is intended to highlight the functionality of the Flash Maps API by providing interactive samples and easily-downloadable source code. Quite a few of the existing samples have been revised to incorporate additional functionality and two new samples have been added: search map and alternate routes.

Search Map is a sample that dynamically displays results from the MapQuest Search Web Service based on the extent of the map. Query results are updated and displayed every time a zoomend or dragend event is detected, so, every time the map is zoomed or panned, the results are updated based on the extent of the map. Also, a slider component allows a maximum number of search results to be defined, so the results will be limited to a number that is set by the user.

The Alternate Routes sample queries the MapQuest Directions Web Service and displays route alternatives that are returned when a route is requested. Alternate routes are displayed in a clickable list and the time, distance, route map, and narrative will update based on the selected route, which allows for easy comparison of route details. The maximum number of route alternatives that are returned by the Directions Web Service can be defined as well, so the results will be limited to a number that is set by the user.

Finally, DGLogik has announced a MapQuest component for their innovative Adobe Flex and AIR-based DGLux visualization platform. DGLux allows users to create data-driven applications and dashboards without writing a single line of code! The DGLux MapQuest component is powered by the MapQuest Flash Maps API. Check out the video tutorial below:

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.

I’ve been involved with many a mobile project over the years, and, frankly, they are a huge pain.  To build an app available to most users means building the same code several times over, once for each major platform.  Today, we’re excited to announce a new API combined with an Adobe technology that should alleviate that pain.

For those who have been following Adobe lately, you’ve seen some very exciting developments within their Flash Builder (Flex SDK) development tools.  With the release of Flash Builder 4.5, you can deploy native mobile applications to Apple iOS, Google Android and Blackberry Tablet from a single code base.  Yes, code ONE time and deploy native applications everywhere.  For those used to Adobe Flex, Flash Builder is the new name of the development tool to deploy applications using Adobe Flex SDK or ActionScript.

Our Mobile Flash Maps API provides interactive mapping features to use within Flash Builder 4.5 native mobile applications.  This includes support for touch gestures, as well as making our controls and POIs mobile friendly. So now you can easily combine the great features of our web services, such as searching for traffic or optimizing your route, with an easy way to deploy to a mobile device.  Check out the video below to see just a small sample of what you can do.

To me, there’s nothing better than finding the perfect piece of sample code when I’m looking to develop an application.  The mobile application featured in that video is available to jumpstart your next mobile project.  If you’re on an Android device, you can run this app directly on your phone by checking out the MapQuest Mobile Flash Maps API Showcase in the Android Market.  You can also download the source code for our mobile mapping app here.

We couldn’t squeeze all the features of our web services in a single app – here are some other features you might be interested in.

• Searching for traffic incidents along a route
• Search by drive time or drive distance, either around a point or along a route
• Alternate routing
• Optimized routing (re-order stops to make the overall trip more efficient)
• Reverse geocoding
• Bicycle routing and elevation charts using open data

Along with those features, you have your choice of using either our licensed data (what we use on MapQuest.com) or our open data (such as OpenStreetMap).  While the Mobile Flash Maps API is different from our web/desktop Flash Maps API, you’ll still find many of the samples we provide on our desktop/web API will be useful to see the possibilities of what can be built.  Here is a full list of differences between the mobile and web/desktop versions of our Flash Maps API.

This is just the beginning – we’re excited to meet Flash Builder and Flex developers here at Adobe MAX and hear what features they’re looking for from us going forward.  We have an Unconference discussion at 10 am on Wednesday if you would like to see the Mobile Flash Maps API in action.

If you’re not at the show, head over to our Flash Maps API Forums at let us know what you think.  We already have some additional improvements on the way.

Catch up with us at MAX (@MapQuestRoman)!

Sample application using advanced routing options.

This is why we’re announcing today the first beta release of the MapQuest Android Maps API! Additionally, we’re providing a large number of samples to showcase our toolkit and provide the source code for each. The following describes just a few of the features you’ll find in this beta release:

• Advanced routing options and ability to display the route directly on the map
• Built-in geocoding and reverse geocoding
• Smooth animation when zooming/panning
• Ability to rotate the map
• Trackball gesture detector
• Support of shape and image overlays

But that’s not all! The OpenStreetMap (OSM) community may be pleased to learn that, similar to our free Android app, our popular OSM tiles and Open Services are all available as part of the MapQuest SDK for Android! By simply leaving the android:apiKey attribute blank, the map and its related services will default to the Open tiles and directions, and use Nominatim for searching/geocoding.

To download our documentation and samples, please refer to the following links.

MapQuest Android Maps API and Android Samples
API Reference Guide

Don’t forget to help us improve our API by sending feedback and reporting any bugs to AndroidSDK@mapquest.com. All feedback is greatly appreciated. Enjoy!