Some of you may have seen this recent (4/28/14) ESRI blogpost - The New Ocean Basemap.

ESRI, in their infinite wisdom, has split up their Ocean Basemap into 2 separate services. One with just the map tiles. And one with just the labels. And they will 'retire' the old basemap in 2015.

My first thought: Cool, now I'll be able to drop the labels from their basemap if I want.

My second thought: But what about those times when I don't want to drop the labels...?

With basemaps being mutually exclusive, am I really going to need to build special circumstances into my mapping applications (to say whenever the ESRI Ocean Basemap is active, make sure this other ESRI Ocean Label overlay/layer is also active...etc).

What a PITA.

Are they really making it this difficult to display their Ocean Basemap with the Labels???

Have I mis-read their blogpost?
Am I missing the better/obvious solution?

BTW I've created an openlayers example in a jsfiddle so you can see the 3 ESRI offerings in place (Original Ocean Basemap, New Ocean Basemap, and the New Ocean Labels).

Some of you may have seen this recent (4/28/14) ESRI blogpost - The New Ocean Basemap.

ESRI, in their infinite wisdom, has split up their Ocean Basemap into 2 separate services. One with just the map tiles. And one with just the labels. And they will 'retire' the old basemap in 2015.

My first thought: Cool, now I'll be able to drop the labels from their basemap if I want.

My second thought: But what about those times when I don't want to drop the labels...?

With basemaps being mutually exclusive, am I really going to need to build special circumstances into my mapping applications (to say whenever the ESRI Ocean Basemap is active, make sure this other ESRI Ocean Label overlay/layer is also active...etc).

What a PITA.

Are they really making it this difficult to display their Ocean Basemap with the Labels???

Have I mis-read their blogpost?
Am I missing the better/obvious solution?

BTW I've created an openlayers example in a jsfiddle so you can see the 3 ESRI offerings in place (Original Ocean Basemap, New Ocean Basemap, and the New Ocean Labels).

Some of you may have seen this recent (4/28/14) ESRI blogpost - The New Ocean Basemap.

ESRI, in their infinite wisdom, has split up their Ocean Basemap into 2 separate services. One with just the map tiles. And one with just the labels. And they will 'retire' the old basemap in 2015.

My first thought: Cool, now I'll be able to drop the labels from their basemap if I want.

My second thought: But what about those times when I don't want to drop the labels...?

With basemaps being mutually exclusive, am I really going to need to build special circumstances into my mapping applications (to say whenever the ESRI Ocean Basemap is active, make sure this other ESRI Ocean Label overlay/layer is also active...etc).

What a PITA.

Are they really making it this difficult to display their Ocean Basemap with the Labels???

Have I mis-read their blogpost?
Am I missing the better/obvious solution?

Some of you may have seen this recent (4/28/14) ESRI blogpost - The New Ocean Basemap.

ESRI, in their infinite wisdom, has split up their Ocean Basemap into 2 separate services. One with just the map tiles. And one with just the labels. And they will 'retire' the old basemap in 2015.

My first thought: Cool, now I'll be able to drop the labels from their basemap if I want.

My second thought: But what about those times when I don't want to drop the labels...?

With basemaps being mutually exclusive, am I really going to need to build special circumstances into my mapping applications (to say whenever the ESRI Ocean Basemap is active, make sure this other ESRI Ocean Label overlay/layer is also active...etc).

What a PITA.

Are they really making it this difficult to display their Ocean Basemap with the Labels???

Have I mis-read their blogpost?
Am I missing the better/obvious solution?

BTW I've created an openlayers example in a jsfiddle so you can see the 3 ESRI offerings in place (Original Ocean Basemap, New Ocean Basemap, and the New Ocean Labels).