Z-index of iOS MapKit user location annotation

Finally got it to work using the code listed below thanks to the help from Paul Tiarks. The problem I ran into is that the MKUserLocation annotation gets added to the map first before any others, so when you add the other annotations their order appears to be random and would still end up on top of the MKUserLocation annotation. To fix this I had to move all the other annotations to the back as well as move the MKUserLocation annotation to the front.

- (void) mapView:(MKMapView *)aMapView didAddAnnotationViews:(NSArray *)views {    for (MKAnnotationView *view in views)     {        if ([[view annotation] isKindOfClass:[MKUserLocation class]])         {            [[view superview] bringSubviewToFront:view];        }         else         {            [[view superview] sendSubviewToBack:view];        }    }}

Update: You may want to add the code below to ensure the blue dot is drawn on top when scrolling it off the viewable area of the map.

- (void)mapView:(MKMapView *)mapView regionDidChangeAnimated:(BOOL)animated{          for (NSObject *annotation in [mapView annotations])   {    if ([annotation isKindOfClass:[MKUserLocation class]])     {      NSLog(@"Bring blue location dot to front");      MKAnnotationView *view = [mapView viewForAnnotation:(MKUserLocation *)annotation];      [[view superview] bringSubviewToFront:view];    }  }}

Another solution:setup annotation view layer's zPosition (annotationView.layer.zPosition) in:

- (void)mapView:(MKMapView *)mapView didAddAnnotationViews:(NSArray *)views;

The official answer to that thread is wrong... using zPosition is indeed the best approach and fastest vs using regionDidChangeAnimated...

else you would suffer big performance impact with many annotations on map (as every change of frame would rescan all annotations). and been testing it...

so when creating the view of the annotation (or in didAddAnnotationViews) set : self.layer.zPosition = -1; (below all others)

and as pointed out by yuf: This makes the pin cover callouts from other pins – yuf Dec 5 '13 at 20:25

i.e. the annotation view will appear below other pins.

to fix, simply reput the zPosition to 0 when you have a selection

-(void) mapView:(MKMapView*)mapView didSelectAnnotationView:(MKAnnotationView*)view {    if ([view isKindOfClass:[MyCustomAnnotationView class]])        view.layer.zPosition = 0;   ...}-(void) mapView:(MKMapView*)mapView didDeselectAnnotationView:(MKAnnotationView*)view {    if ([view isKindOfClass:[MyCustomAnnotationView class]])        view.layer.zPosition = -1;   ...}