iOS 8 Swift Programming Cookbook

Chapter 18. Dates, Calendars, and Events

18.0. 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 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 the user 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 makes 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 that 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 an iCloud account and log in to that account using your iOS device. Now that you have your iCloud account, pull out your iOS device, head over to ...