As per this documentation on apple's site (scroll down to Privacy in the middle of the page), access to the address book must be granted before it can be access programmatically. Here is what I ended up doing.
#import <AddressBookUI/AddressBookUI.h>
// Request authorization to Address Book
ABAddressBookRef addressBookRef = ABAddressBookCreateWithOptions(NULL, NULL);
if (ABAddressBookGetAuthorizationStatus() == kABAuthorizationStatusNotDetermined) {
ABAddressBookRequestAccessWithCompletion(addressBookRef, ^(bool granted, CFErrorRef error) {
if (granted) {
// First time access has been granted, add the contact
[self _addContactToAddressBook];
} else {
// User denied access
// Display an alert telling user the contact could not be added
}
});
}
else if (ABAddressBookGetAuthorizationStatus() == kABAuthorizationStatusAuthorized) {
// The user has previously given access, add the contact
[self _addContactToAddressBook];
}
else {
// The user has previously denied access
// Send an alert telling user to change privacy setting in settings app
}
Update For iOS 9 and later:
From Apple website :
Important
The Address Book UI framework is deprecated in iOS 9. Use the APIs defined in the ContactsUI framework instead. To learn more, see ContactsUI
On iOS6, apple introduce new privacy control, user can control the accessment of contact and calender by each app. So, in the code side, you need to add some way to request the permission. In iOS5 or before, we can always call
to get the addressbook without any problem, but in iOS6, if you don't have permission, this call will just return empty pointer. That why we need to change the method to get ABAddressBookRef.
__block BOOL accessGranted = NO;
if (ABAddressBookRequestAccessWithCompletion != NULL) { // we're on iOS 6
dispatch_semaphore_t sema = dispatch_semaphore_create(0);
ABAddressBookRequestAccessWithCompletion(addressBook, ^(bool granted, CFErrorRef error) {
accessGranted = granted;
dispatch_semaphore_signal(sema);
});
dispatch_semaphore_wait(sema, DISPATCH_TIME_FOREVER);
dispatch_release(sema);
}
else { // we're on iOS 5 or older
accessGranted = YES;
}
if (accessGranted) {
// Do whatever you want here.
}
In the code,semaphore is used for blocking until response, while ABAddressBookRequestAccessWithCompletion will ask for permission if the app didn't ask before. Otherwise it will just follow the settings in Settings-Privacy-Contact.
Had some problems with yunas code on iOS6.1 in Xcode5. With some small adaptions it worked for me.
The problem was that ARC in iOS 6, did not allows dispatch_release(sema); Here's the working code. Note: I use m_addressbook instead of addressbook as ABAddressBookRef!
ViewController.m
#import "ViewController.h"
#import <AddressBook/AddressBook.h>
#import <AddressBook/ABAddressBook.h>
#import <AddressBook/ABPerson.h>
@interface ViewController ()
@property (nonatomic, strong) NSMutableArray* contactList;
@end
@implementation ViewController
- (void)viewDidLoad
{
[super viewDidLoad];
ABAddressBookRef m_addressbook = ABAddressBookCreateWithOptions(NULL, NULL);
__block BOOL accessGranted = NO;
if (ABAddressBookRequestAccessWithCompletion != NULL) { // we're on iOS 6
dispatch_semaphore_t sema = dispatch_semaphore_create(0);
dispatch_async(dispatch_get_global_queue(DISPATCH_QUEUE_PRIORITY_DEFAULT, 0), ^{
@autoreleasepool {
// Write your code here...
// Fetch data from SQLite DB
}
});
ABAddressBookRequestAccessWithCompletion(m_addressbook, ^(bool granted, CFErrorRef error) {
accessGranted = granted;
dispatch_semaphore_signal(sema);
});
dispatch_semaphore_wait(sema, DISPATCH_TIME_FOREVER);
}
else { // we're on iOS 5 or older
accessGranted = YES;
}
if (accessGranted) {
// do your stuff
}
}
// ...
- (void)viewDidLoad
{
[super viewDidLoad];
[self loadPhoneContacts];
}
-(void)loadPhoneContacts{
ABAuthorizationStatus status = ABAddressBookGetAuthorizationStatus();
if (status == kABAuthorizationStatusDenied) {
// if you got here, user had previously denied/revoked permission for your
// app to access the contacts, and all you can do is handle this gracefully,
// perhaps telling the user that they have to go to settings to grant access
// to contacts
[[[UIAlertView alloc] initWithTitle:nil message:@"This app requires access to your contacts to function properly. Please visit to the \"Privacy\" section in the iPhone Settings app." delegate:nil cancelButtonTitle:@"OK" otherButtonTitles:nil] show];
return;
}
CFErrorRef error = NULL;
ABAddressBookRef addressBook = ABAddressBookCreateWithOptions(NULL, &error);
if (error) {
NSLog(@"ABAddressBookCreateWithOptions error: %@", CFBridgingRelease(error));
if (addressBook) CFRelease(addressBook);
return;
}
if (status == kABAuthorizationStatusNotDetermined) {
// present the user the UI that requests permission to contacts ...
ABAddressBookRequestAccessWithCompletion(addressBook, ^(bool granted, CFErrorRef error) {
if (error) {
NSLog(@"ABAddressBookRequestAccessWithCompletion error: %@", CFBridgingRelease(error));
}
if (granted) {
// if they gave you permission, then just carry on
[self listPeopleInAddressBook:addressBook];
} else {
// however, if they didn't give you permission, handle it gracefully, for example...
dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^{
// BTW, this is not on the main thread, so dispatch UI updates back to the main queue
[[[UIAlertView alloc] initWithTitle:nil message:@"This app requires access to your contacts to function properly. Please visit to the \"Privacy\" section in the iPhone Settings app." delegate:nil cancelButtonTitle:@"OK" otherButtonTitles:nil] show];
});
}
if (addressBook) CFRelease(addressBook);
});
} else if (status == kABAuthorizationStatusAuthorized) {
[self listPeopleInAddressBook:addressBook];
if (addressBook) CFRelease(addressBook);
}
}
- (void)listPeopleInAddressBook:(ABAddressBookRef)addressBook
{
NSInteger numberOfPeople = ABAddressBookGetPersonCount(addressBook);
NSArray *allPeople = CFBridgingRelease(ABAddressBookCopyArrayOfAllPeople(addressBook));
for (NSInteger i = 0; i < numberOfPeople; i++) {
ABRecordRef person = (__bridge ABRecordRef)allPeople[i];
NSString *firstName = CFBridgingRelease(ABRecordCopyValue(person, kABPersonFirstNameProperty));
NSString *lastName = CFBridgingRelease(ABRecordCopyValue(person, kABPersonLastNameProperty));
NSLog(@"Name:%@ %@", firstName, lastName);
ABMultiValueRef phoneNumbers = ABRecordCopyValue(person, kABPersonPhoneProperty);
CFIndex numberOfPhoneNumbers = ABMultiValueGetCount(phoneNumbers);
for (CFIndex i = 0; i < numberOfPhoneNumbers; i++) {
NSString *phoneNumber = CFBridgingRelease(ABMultiValueCopyValueAtIndex(phoneNumbers, i));
NSLog(@" phone:%@", phoneNumber);
}
CFRelease(phoneNumbers);
NSLog(@"=============================================");
}
}