Map tiles exposed

When writing an LBS application, you have many different options when it comes to map tiles.

At Centrl, we have licensed map tiles from Microsoft (data supplied by Navteq) for use on the iPhone and BlackBerry. We pay Microsoft per transaction, which is 8 map tiles downloaded from their map tile servers.

And we use Google map tiles (data supplied by TeleAtlas and more) on our website and on the Android (through the native Android Maps component).

Now there is one more option on the new iPhone 3.x SDK: a native Maps component that comes with map tiles from Google. We think this is going to make writing LBS apps on the iPhone much easier since there will be one less issue to worry about.

But no matter where you get your map tiles, you will find that, somewhere in the world, some user will definitely be dissatisfied with the accuracy, detail and zoom level of your map tiles. So you will have to go that country, find a local partner and customize your map tiles for that location to satisfy your customers.

It’s interesting that nobody has thought of creating a network of local partners that someone can just go and choose from, like a smorgasbord of high-quality local content that is aggregated very conveniently.

Furthermore, there are even companies that will fly over a specific area for you and create super high-precision map tiles for you. Now imagine all this were offered as a single menu where you could purchase from