MKMapView with address

Question

is there a way to make the MKMapView place a pin with a given address? Without using the Coordinates

Thanks

Answer 1

Since google posted a new version to their geocoding API (upgrade notes), the Google Maps URL provided by @Aaron Saunders is no longer valid. Additionally, the response is now either json or xml so I have made some changes to address this in the accepted response.

- (CLLocationCoordinate2D)locationFromAddressString:(NSString*)addressString {

    if (!addressString.length) {
        ALog(@"provided an empty 'addressStr'");
        return CLLocationCoordinate2DMake(0.0, 0.0);
    }

    NSString *urlStr = [NSString stringWithFormat:GOOGLE_MAPS_GEOCODING_URL_STR,
                    [addressString stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]];

    NSError *dataError;
    NSError *jsonError;
    NSData *responseData = [NSData dataWithContentsOfURL:[NSURL URLWithString:urlStr]
                                             options:NSDataReadingMappedAlways
                                               error:&dataError];
    NSDictionary *responseBody = [NSJSONSerialization JSONObjectWithData:responseData
                                                             options:NSJSONReadingMutableContainers
                                                               error:&jsonError];

    if (!dataError && !jsonError && [responseBody[@"status"] isEqualToString:@"OK"]) {
        NSDictionary *coords = responseBody[@"results"][0][@"geometry"][@"location"];
        return CLLocationCoordinate2DMake([coords[@"lat"] doubleValue],
                                      [coords[@"lng"] doubleValue]);
    }
    else {
        ALog(@"Address [%@] not found. \nResponse [%@]. \nError [%@]",addressString, responseBody, jsonError);
        return CLLocationCoordinate2DMake(0.0, 0.0);
    }
}