[maemo-developers] Developing Map-based apps for N900

[From: Simon Pickering]

> If I want to develop an app that integrates with a map 
> plugin, then obviously I want to use Ovi maps but the Ovi 
> Maps SDK doesn't support Maemo and as far as I know the Ovi 
> Maps app for Maemo can't be used as a plugin.
> 
> There must be work going on behind the scenes to resolve this 
> situation - in the mean time I would be greatly appreciated 
> if someone from Nokia could provide some direction so 
> developer like myself avoid wasting time on solutions that 
> might be dead-ends when the real solution is eventually announced.
> 
> The way I see it there are several potential solutions:
> 
> 1) I could write a Qt App that embeds Ovi Maps into a 
> QtWebKit widget.  I don't think this is currently possible 
> due to it's lack of support for Maemo/Linux but I will do 
> some prototyping here any way and see how far I get.
> 
> 2) Write a Qt app that embeds Google Maps into a QtWebKit widget.
> 
> 3) Wait for a dedicated Ovi Maps plugin for Maemo to be 
> developed.  Will there ever be such a plugin?
> 
> Can someone from Nokia comment on this please?

I'm not from Nokia, though I would like to know if the mapping situation
will improve "out of the box". 

With that said, Maemo-mapper is now available for the N900 as is Emerillon
in Extras-devel (uses liblocation but needs its menus hildonising still).
Emerillon is plugin based so that might give you another useful option.

Cheers,


Simon