Hi all,

This turned out to be a dead end, but I thought I'd share anyway as
inspiration. I want a map for rendering on a mobile device (doesn't everyone
these days?). Bandwidth is a big issue - traditional maps are slooow over
mobile connections. So I hit upon the idea of creating a custom map type and
using tiles generated by the static maps API for the tile overlay. This
would let me specify maptype=mobile, format=jpg and use a tile size
optimised for mobile browsing. Being presented on a small mobile screen the
1000 image/user/day limit would probably not be an issue. This reduces tile
size typically by ~12%, mobile tiles are more readable on small screens, and
smaller tiles mean they start displaying sooner. This appears to be the
strategy behind Google's iPhone Maps.app, which at the moment is not
something developers can work with.

*But* I eventually realised there's a google logo and copyright text at the
bottom of every image. We'd be happy to display one logo, but this just
looks ugly. Much wailing and gnashing of teeth ensued.

So close! Anyway, I'm sure Google will add a mobile maptype to the main API
at some point. Please?

Alex