The AddressBook Frameworks

The iOS SDK provides not one, but two, AddressBook frameworks: AddressBook.framework and AddressBookUI.framework. As their names suggest, they occupy distinct niches in the iOS SDK. AddressBook provides low-level Core Foundation (C-based) objects and routines for accessing contact information from the iPhone’s onboard databases. AddressBookUI offers high-level Objective-C–based UIViewController browser objects to present to users. Both frameworks are small. They provide just a few classes and data types.

AddressBookUI

The AddressBookUI framework provides several precooked view controllers that interact with the onboard contacts database. These interfaces include a general people picker, a contact viewer, and a contact editor. You set a delegate and then push these controllers onto your navigation stack or display them modally, as shown in the recipes in this chapter.