iOS 5 Programming Cookbook

14.0. Introduction

The Event Kit and Event Kit UI frameworks allow iOS developers to access the Calendar database on an iOS device. You can insert, read, and modify events using the Event Kit framework. The Event Kit UI framework allows you to present built-in SDK GUI elements that allow the user to manipulate the Calendar database manually. In this chapter, we will focus on the Event Kit framework first, and then learn about the Event Kit UI framework.

With the Event Kit framework, a programmer can modify the user’s Calendar database without him knowing. However, this is not a very good practice. In fact, Apple prohibits programmers from doing so and asks us to always notify users about any changes that the program might make to the Calendar database. Here is a quote from Apple:

If your application modifies a user’s Calendar database programmatically, it must get confirmation from the user before doing so. An application should never modify the Calendar database without specific instruction from the user.

iOS comes with a built-in Calendar app. The Calendar app can work with different types of calendars, such as local, CalDAV, and so forth. In this chapter, we will be working with different types of calendars as well. To make sure you are prepared to run the code in some of the recipes in this chapter, please create a Google account and associate it with Google Calendar. To get started, head over to http://www.google.com/calendar/.

Once there, create a Google account. After you are ...