I am working on an Android app that already exists on iPhone.

In the app, there is a Map activity that has (I counted) around 800 markers in four groups marked by drawable in four different colors. Each group can be turned on or off. Information about markers I have inside List. I create a mapOverlay for each group, then I attach that overlay to the map. I strongly believe that coding part I did properly. But I will attach my code anyway...

The thing is, my Nexus One can't handle map with all those markers. It takes around 15 seconds just to draw 500 markers. Then when all drawn, map is not quite smooth. It is sort of hard to zoom and navigate around. It can be done, but experience is bad and I would like to see if something can be done there.

iPhone seems doesn't have problems showing all these markers. It takes roughly about 1-2 seconds to show all of them and zooming and panning is not that bad. Slow down is noticeable but still acceptable. I personally think it is no good to draw all those markers, but app is designed by somebody else and I am not supposed to make any drastic changes.

I am not sure what to do here. It seems I will have to come up with different functionality, maybe use GPS location, if known, and draw only markers within some radius, or, if location not known, use center of the screen(map) and draw markers around that. I will have to have reasonable explanation for my bosses in case I make these changes.

I appreciate if anybody has any idas.

And the code:

     ...
       for (int m = 0; m < ArrList.size(); m++) {
            tName = ArrList.get(m).get("name").toString();
            tId = ArrList.get(m).get("id").toString();
            tLat = ArrList.get(m).get("lat").toString();;
            tLng = ArrList.get(m).get("lng").toString();;
            try {
                lat = Double.parseDouble(tLat);
                lng = Double.parseDouble(tLng);
                p1 = new GeoPoint(
                        (int) (lat * 1E6), 
                        (int) (lng * 1E6));
                OverlayItem overlayitem = new OverlayItem(p1, tName, tId);
                itemizedoverlay.addOverlay(overlayitem);
            } catch (NumberFormatException e) {
                Log.d(TAG, "NumberFormatException" + e);    
            }
        }
        mapOverlays.add(itemizedoverlay);
        mapView.postInvalidate();

................................

public class HelloItemizedOverlay extends ItemizedOverlay<OverlayItem>
{
    private ArrayList<OverlayItem> mOverlays = new ArrayList<OverlayItem>();
    private Context mContext;
    public HelloItemizedOverlay(Drawable defaultMarker, Context context)
    {
        super(boundCenterBottom(defaultMarker));
        mContext = context;
    }

    public void addOverlay(OverlayItem overlay)
    {
        mOverlays.add(overlay);
        populate();
    }
    @Override
    protected OverlayItem createItem(int i)
    {
        return mOverlays.get(i);
    }
    @Override
    public int size()
    {
        return mOverlays.size();
    }
    @Override
    protected boolean onTap(int index)
    {
        final OverlayItem item = mOverlays.get(index);
                    ... EACH MARKER WILL HAVE ONCLICK EVENT THAT WILL PRODUCE CLICABLE 
                    ... BALOON WITH MARKER'S NAME.          
        return true;
    }       
}