Learning iPad Programming: Accessing the Photo Library (Podcast Transcript)
Hi. I'm Kirby Turner. I'm the author of the book Learning iPad Programming: A Hands-on Guide to Building iPad Apps with iOS 5. In this episode, I'm gonna talk about accessing photos from the local Photo Library.
There are two different ways you can access photos within iOS:
- One is using the UIImagePickerController. It's a navigation controller that provides a set of screens for browsing the Photo Library. The UIImagePickerController can also be used to take still photos and video capture from the device.
- The second way that you can access photos through the Photo Library is using the new AssetsLibrary framework. This framework was introduced in iOS 4.0, and it provides an API for accessing both photos and videos that are controlled by the Photo app. One nice thing about using the AssetsLibrary API or framework is that it's not tied to a particular user interface. So this gives you the ability to create your own user interface.
Whereas with the UIImagePickerController you're limited to selecting just a single image, by using the AssetsLibrary framework you can create your own set of screens that allow the user to select more than one image to be used within your application.
I hope you found this tip to be useful.
Kirby Turner provides a tip on how to create a universal appone that runs natively on both the iPad and the iPhonein "Learning iPad Programming: Tips for Writing a Universal App."
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