MKMapView: Instead of Annotation Pin, a custom view

Question

I want to display an image in my MKMapView instead of little rock pin.

Can someone please put some helpful code here, or tell the way how to do it?

-(MKAnnotationView *)mapView:(MKMapView *)mV viewForAnnotation:
    (id <MKAnnotation>)annotation {
    MKPinAnnotationView *pinView = nil; 
    if(annotation != mapView.userLocation) 
    {
        static NSString *defaultPinID = @"com.invasivecode.pin";
        pinView = (MKPinAnnotationView *)[mapView dequeueReusableAnnotationViewWithIdentifier:defaultPinID];
        if ( pinView == nil ) pinView = [[MKPinAnnotationView alloc]
                                          initWithAnnotation:annotation reuseIdentifier:defaultPinID];

        pinView.pinColor = MKPinAnnotationColorGreen; 
        pinView.canShowCallout = YES;
        pinView.animatesDrop = YES;
        pinView.image = [UIImage imageNamed:@"pinks.jpg"]; //as suggested by Squatch
    } 
    else {
        [mapView.userLocation setTitle:@"I am here"];
    }
    return pinView;
}

I am expecting my image pinks.jpg to be on the map, pinning the location instead of default pin view (rock pin shaped). But still I am getting the default image of the pin.

Answer 1

When you want to use your own image for an annotation view, you should create an MKAnnotationView instead of an MKPinAnnotationView.

MKPinAnnotationView is a subclass of MKAnnotationView so it has an image property but it generally overrides that and draws a pin image (that's what it's for).

So change the code to:

-(MKAnnotationView *)mapView:(MKMapView *)mV viewForAnnotation:(id <MKAnnotation>)annotation 
{
    MKAnnotationView *pinView = nil; 
    if(annotation != mapView.userLocation) 
    {
        static NSString *defaultPinID = @"com.invasivecode.pin";
        pinView = (MKAnnotationView *)[mapView dequeueReusableAnnotationViewWithIdentifier:defaultPinID];
        if ( pinView == nil ) 
            pinView = [[MKAnnotationView alloc]
                                         initWithAnnotation:annotation reuseIdentifier:defaultPinID];

        //pinView.pinColor = MKPinAnnotationColorGreen; 
        pinView.canShowCallout = YES;
        //pinView.animatesDrop = YES;
        pinView.image = [UIImage imageNamed:@"pinks.jpg"];    //as suggested by Squatch
    } 
    else {
        [mapView.userLocation setTitle:@"I am here"];
    }
    return pinView;
}

Notice that animatesDrop is also commented out since that property only exists in MKPinAnnotationView.

If you still want your image annotations to drop, you'll have to do the animation yourself. You can search Stack Overflow for "animatesdrop mkannotationview" and you'll find several answers. Here are the first two:

• Is it possible to call animatesDrop in a MKAnnotationView rather than MKPinAnnotationView?
• How can I create a custom "pin-drop" animation using MKAnnotationView?