iphoneobjective-ciosmkmapviewuserlocation

How to change MKMapView's user-location blue dot to an image of choice?


Is it possible to change the blue dot which indicates the user's location in MKMapView to an image? For example a little car or any .png image?

enter image description here


Solution

  • In the viewForAnnotation: method of MKMapViewDelegate probably you would be having the code like this.

    - (MKAnnotationView *)mapView:(MKMapView *)mapView viewForAnnotation:(id <MKAnnotation>)annotation {
    
        if (annotation == mapView.userLocation) return nil;
        ...
    

    We return nil if the annotation is userLocation to let the mapView display the blue dot & circle animation. In order to show our custom annotation for userLocation just remove the line return nil; and do your customization there.

    - (MKAnnotationView *)mapView:(MKMapView *)mapView viewForAnnotation:(id <MKAnnotation>)annotation {
    
        static NSString* AnnotationIdentifier = @"Annotation";
        MKPinAnnotationView *pinView = (MKPinAnnotationView *)[mapView dequeueReusableAnnotationViewWithIdentifier:AnnotationIdentifier];
    
        if (!pinView) {
    
            MKPinAnnotationView *customPinView = [[[MKPinAnnotationView alloc] initWithAnnotation:annotation reuseIdentifier:AnnotationIdentifier] autorelease];   
            if (annotation == mapView.userLocation){
               customPinView.image = [UIImage imageNamed:@"myCarImage.png"];
            }
            else{
                customPinView.image = [UIImage imageNamed:@"mySomeOtherImage.png"];
            }
            customPinView.animatesDrop = NO;
            customPinView.canShowCallout = YES;
            return customPinView;
    
        } else {
    
            pinView.annotation = annotation;
        }
    
        return pinView;
    }