Google Map latitude/longitude not accurate in Apple Map

I have the same problem - I'm making an app that plots polygons onto apple maps using latitude/longitude coordinates for the points of the polygons. If I use points found from google maps, they are roughly correct but do not always correspond to the apple map very accurately (for buildings, roads etc.).

So the real question is why am I using Google maps to find the coordinates to plot on an Apple map in the first place? Because the most accurate coordinates I can get out of apple maps by any of the (fairly inconvenient) methods I've tried are only to 4 decimal places, and thus entirely inaccurate and useless for my purposes. The only way to get a more accurate coordinate in apple maps seems to be to take your own location from going and physically standing there (using a custom app to read your location) - I haven't yet found a way to do it by dropping a pin. If there is any way, I would really like to hear it and I'm open to suggestions. I find it hard to believe this is such a difficult thing to do given that MapKit provides the functionality to overlay things using coordinates.

How are you making that determination? I'm not saying your wrong. I just don't have any code in front of me or anything handy where I could prove or disprove it. I sure seem to be able to position a pin on a map with greater resolution from. Are are you talking about extracting locations from Apple Map data? Don't do that. Obviously the basemap is built from data with more precision than that. But there is no guarantee that an API is going to give you those accurate locations. You shouldn't use Google because those points are owned by Google. You could use OSM but then you would have to comply with OSM's license too. There are other databases with more liberal licenses. You may not be able to get decent data from those other databases. The OSM license is not that bad really. The burden is setting up your own servers to manage it.

I want to use Apple's own MapKit in my iOS app. My app has to draw things on that map, and they have to be accurate so they match up with where Apple has decided to draw things on their map. The problem seems really simple, so how can I best achieve this?

At the moment, Google forgive me, I am getting my points manually clicking in Google maps by visually identifying the place, copying and pasting the coordinates, sticking them in an overlay in my app, and then adjusting the lat/long values/reloading them until they are positioned correctly to where they should be on Apple maps. This is still an unpublished app at this stage, so I don't think they'll be coming after me for copyright on those points. However, this seems a bit of a crazy way to do things - can you recommend a better way?

Thank you for introducing OSM, but I think I will have the same issues.

Can you give me an example of one of these places?

I don't think what you are asking is feasible. Apple positions place marks where it positions them. That isn't necessarily correct. A classic cartographic technique is to inject errors into a map so you can easily prove the data has been copied.

You are correct that you will always have alignment issues with dealing with multiple data sources. There is no way around that. Apple gives you a basemap. They don't give you their data. That is likely the source of your accuracy problems. You don't have to use Apple's basemap. You don't even have to use Apple's mapping software. You may be able to use Google itself. You could use a 3rd party product like Maply (http://mousebird.github.io/WhirlyGlobe/).

I see your issue about the place marks. Customers will be confused if your locations differ slightly from Apple's. Is that really going to be a show-stopper? Could you just explain it in the documentation? Just blame Apple for inaccurate data. Most people would accept that and it would likely even be true.

I've found a way round it now - I can get the centre coordinate of a map view (in inside my iOS app) by printing the mapView.centerCoordinate whenever regionDidChangeAnimated is called. I haven't done it yet, but I could create and overlay a crosshair above the map view, zoom in to maximum in the app and make sure the crosshair's over the location I want. That way I can get the coordinates to 15 decimal places, and accurate to apple maps. Hope someone finds this useful (wish I'd found it earlier!).

What does it matter? Google's terms of service forbid you from using Google's service outside of Google Maps. You will have to replace your Google data with an Apple or open data equivalent in order to use it with Apple Maps.

Here is a link to Google Maps Terms of Service. Google make these services available to drive traffic to its web site. If you don't display the data on Google's web site, you are essentially stealing from Google. Not only that, Google considers the revenue it earns from Maps to be insufficient. Google Maps services are not free for developers. You don't want to publish an app that relies on Google's services and then get a bill from Google. Awkward!

I now notice that you are talking about lat/long and addresses. While lat/log coordinates are consistent and show be the same on any platform, addresses are completely different. I have found addresses from Apple Maps to be more accurate than those from Google. Google can resolve more addresses due to its web search back end. But that same back end can skew the results. Apple Maps are more likely to resolve an address correctly even if there is a more internet-popular location nearby.