While wading through the new 2.2 Frameworks, I suddenly noticed that MapKit, once a Private Framework was missing in action. MapKit, which was available until SDK 2.1, offered all kinds of utterly yummy features including Trip Players, Traffic tiles, Route Views and more. So what happened to MapKit?

It's clear that Google Maps got a big overhaul from Apple during the 2.2 update, Street View being a stand out feature. Wondering if Apple simply moved the MapKit features into the application itself, I started looking directly through the Applications folder. My search for key phrases like TripRecorder and RouteView failed. This wasn't just a case of a framework being re-absorbed into its original application. The functions were well and truly missing.

So here's my guess about where MapKit has gone: I think Apple may still be working on upgrading it and it wasn't ready to be deployed in 2.2. The features it offers are seriously interesting and I can't imagine Apple would walk away from this kind of promising technology.

For anyone interested in browsing through the headers for the now non-existent classes, I've put the 2.1 header dump files up on my site. Here's a list of those classes, which were last seen in SDK 2.1:

CABasicAnimation-MapKitExtras.h
CALayer-MapKitExtras.h
CAMediaTimingFunction-MapKitExtras.h
CDStructures.h
CLLocation-MapKitAdditions.h
GMMRoute-MapsExtras.h
MKAddressBookAddress.h
MKAddressBookSearchResult.h
MKBoundsAnimation.h
MKCustomAnimation.h
MKDotAccuracyLayer.h
MKDotPositionView.h
MKGraphView.h
MKHoverAnimation.h
MKInnerCirclePositionView.h
MKLevelView.h
MKLocationLoader.h
MKLocationManager.h
MKLocationResult.h
MKMapLevelView.h
MKMapPin.h
MKMapTile.h
MKMapView-UserPositioning.h
MKMapView-UserPositioningInternal.h
MKMapView.h
MKMapViewInternal.h
MKMapViewPositioningChange.h
MKOverlayView-UICalloutViewDelegate.h
MKOverlayView.h
MKOverlayViewInternal.h
MKPositionAnimation.h
MKPositionView.h
MKRingPositionView.h
MKRingView.h
MKRouteLoader.h
MKRouteView.h
MKSearchInfo.h
MKSearchResult.h
MKSearchResultManager.h
MKTileResult.h
MKTileView.h
MKTrafficTile.h
MKTripPlayer.h
MKTripPoint.h
MKTripRecorder.h
MKZoomLevelSearchResults.h
NSArray-SortedResultPins.h
NSArray-SortedSearchResults.h
NSInvocation-MKAdditions.h
NSKeyedUnarchiver-MKAdditions.h
NSMutableArray-SortedResultPinsInsertion.h
NSMutableArray-SortedSearchResultsInsertion.h
NSUserDefaults-MapKitAdditions.h
UIImage-MapKitExtras.h
UIView-Additions.h
UIView-GraphingUtilities.h
UIView-MapKitExtras.h