
MapKit JS – Embed interactive Apple maps on your website - plonkus
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/mapkitjs
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vasile
The API is rich and neat, just hacked a little demo with driving directions
[https://github.com/vasile/mapkit-js-demo](https://github.com/vasile/mapkit-
js-demo)

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specialist
Nicely done.

The window scroll gesture DOES NOT zoom the view.

THANK GOD.

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emilfihlman
This is absolutely stupid and hinders usage.

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kgin
Between this and the Apple Music player, it’s great to see Apple finally take
baby steps into actual web services (beyond the app clones inside iCloud.com)

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iamleppert
First impressions:

\- Doesn't seem very performant, panning behavior and zooming seems to redraw
a lot unnecessarily, low framerate and not very smooth on good hardware \-
Poor support for touch events, pinch zoom and pan didn't work for me on
touchpad \- Looks to be using (PNG?) image tiles but and over-scaled canvas
element, my laptop's fan came on during simple zoom and panning. I closed the
tab and it promptly shut off.

The API seems okay but nowhere near as good as leaflet. MapboxGL has better
performance imo.

I'm trying to understand what the compelling reason to use this would be? If
you want the best quality basemaps, use Google Maps. If you want the most
customizability and a great API, use leaflet. If you want a fancy map, use
MapboxGL. If you like apple, use this??

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angott
This thing has been out for less than 24 hours. I’m sure they’ll need some
time to refine and optimize it. Anyone remember how the very first Mapbox
version compared in performance with respect to Google Maps?

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reaperducer
I don't see anything about use limits (as in number of maps generated per
day). Has anyone seen this documented elsewhere?

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hadrien01
There is no information about use limits, but you need a paid Apple Developer
Program account.

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H1Supreme
> but you need a paid Apple Developer Program account.

Where was "paid" bit listed? You don't have to pay the yearly fee to have a
developer account. I let my paid subscription expire a few years ago, and I
can still login and do various things.

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hadrien01
You need to generate a certificate in the Developer backend, and for that you
need a paid account.

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ggregoire
Is Apple Maps still far behind Google Maps?

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sdm
It really depends which country you're looking at. Usually Google Maps is
better, but not always. China is a good example of a place where Apple Maps is
far superior.

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aphextron
>It really depends which country you're looking at. Usually Google Maps is
better, but not always. China is a good example of a place where Apple Maps is
far superior.

What you really mean is that Google is so artificially handicapped by the
Chinese government that Apple Maps is actually decent in comparison. I do not
envy that situation.

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rimliu
So what you say is Apple maps is better in China.

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aphextron
In the same way that Yandex is better in Russia, sure.

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gigatexal
Too bad Apple Maps < Google Maps, still.

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SimeVidas
mapkit.js is 500 KB after unzipping; I don’t think low-end phones can handle
that well (^_^;)

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dvh
I just tested it on 512MB $49 Chinese Android 6.0 phone and it works. Not the
fastest but perfectly usable.

