Just launched a fun app for Mason Software Company called Thinking of You – you can follow it on facebook as well.

The app uses the iOS contact list extensively to send ‘Thinking of You’ push and sms messages. Apple requires that you request permission from the user before you can access the address book, below is a code snippet showing how that is done…

#pragma mark -
#pragma mark Address Book Access

// Check the authorization status of our application for Address Book
-(void)checkAddressBookAccess
{
    switch (ABAddressBookGetAuthorizationStatus())
    {
            // Update our UI if the user has granted access to their Contacts
        case  kABAuthorizationStatusAuthorized:
            [self accessGrantedForAddressBook];
            break;
            // Prompt the user for access to Contacts if there is no definitive answer
        case  kABAuthorizationStatusNotDetermined :
            [self requestAddressBookAccess];
            break;
            // Display a message if the user has denied or restricted access to Contacts
        case  kABAuthorizationStatusDenied:
        case  kABAuthorizationStatusRestricted:
        {
            UIAlertView *alert = [[UIAlertView alloc] initWithTitle:@"Privacy Warning"
                                                            message:@"Permission was not granted for Contacts."
                                                           delegate:nil
                                                  cancelButtonTitle:@"OK"
                                                  otherButtonTitles:nil];
            [alert show];
        }
            break;
        default:
            break;
    }
}

// Prompt the user for access to their Address Book data
-(void)requestAddressBookAccess
{
    ViewController * __weak weakSelf = self;

    ABAddressBookRequestAccessWithCompletion(self.addressBook, ^(bool granted, CFErrorRef error)
                                             {
                                                 if (granted)
                                                 {

                                                     dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^{
                                                         [weakSelf accessGrantedForAddressBook];

                                                     });
                                                 }
                                             });
}

// This method is called when the user has granted access to their address book data.
-(void)accessGrantedForAddressBook
{
    //do something interesting
}