iOS 6 Address Book not working?

Question

My method of programmatically retrieving e-mail addresses from the Address Book no longer seems to work on iOS 6 devices. It worked in iOS 5 and oddly, still works in the iOS 6 Simulator. Is there a new way to programmatically retrieve contacts from a users' Address Book?

ABAddressBookRef addressBook = ABAddressBookCreate();
CFArrayRef allPeople = ABAddressBookCopyArrayOfAllPeople(addressBook);
CFIndex nPeople = ABAddressBookGetPersonCount(addressBook);

self.contacts = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init];

int contactIndex = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < nPeople; i++) {
    // Get the next address book record.
    ABRecordRef record = CFArrayGetValueAtIndex(allPeople, i);        

    // Get array of email addresses from address book record.
    ABMultiValueRef emailMultiValue = ABRecordCopyValue(record, kABPersonEmailProperty);
    NSArray *emailArray = (__bridge_transfer NSArray *)ABMultiValueCopyArrayOfAllValues(emailMultiValue);

    [self.contacts addObject:emailArray];
}

To clarify, the above does not crash, it simply returns no results. ABAddressBookCopyArrayOfAllPeople is empty. Thanks!

Answer 1

Probably related to the new privacy controls—as of iOS 6, on the device, an app can’t access the user’s contacts without their permission. From the documentation:

On iOS 6.0 and later, if the caller does not have access to the Address Book database:

• For apps linked against iOS 6.0 and later, this function returns NULL.

• For apps linked against previous version of iOS, this function returns an empty read-only database.

If you haven’t seen the permissions alert come up (“SomeApp would like access to your contacts”), it’s possible that the direct address-book APIs just assume that they don’t have access and silently fail; you might have to display something from the AddressBookUI framework to trigger it.

Answer 2

I created a helper class, AddressBookHelper, to handle backward compatibility. Here are the guts:

-(BOOL)isABAddressBookCreateWithOptionsAvailable {
    return &ABAddressBookCreateWithOptions != NULL;
}

-(void)loadContacts {
    ABAddressBookRef addressBook;
    if ([self isABAddressBookCreateWithOptionsAvailable]) {
        CFErrorRef error = nil;
        addressBook = ABAddressBookCreateWithOptions(NULL,&error);
        ABAddressBookRequestAccessWithCompletion(addressBook, ^(bool granted, CFErrorRef error) {
            // callback can occur in background, address book must be accessed on thread it was created on
            dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^{
                if (error) {
                    [self.delegate addressBookHelperError:self];
                } else if (!granted) {
                    [self.delegate addressBookHelperDeniedAcess:self];
                } else {
                    // access granted
                    AddressBookUpdated(addressBook, nil, self);
                    CFRelease(addressBook);
                }
            });
        });
    } else {
        // iOS 4/5
        addressBook = ABAddressBookCreate();
        AddressBookUpdated(addressBook, NULL, self);
        CFRelease(addressBook);
    }
}

void AddressBookUpdated(ABAddressBookRef addressBook, CFDictionaryRef info, void *context) {
    AddressBookHelper *helper = (AddressBookHelper *)context;
    ABAddressBookRevert(addressBook);
    CFArrayRef people = ABAddressBookCopyArrayOfAllPeople(addressBook);

    // process the contacts to return
    NSArray *contacts = ...    

    [[helper delegate] addressBookHelper:helper finishedLoading:contacts];
};

Answer 3

Probably related to the new privacy controls, as of iOS 6, on the device, an app can’t access the user’s contacts without their permission.

Code:

-(void)addressBookValidation
{



NSUserDefaults *prefs=[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults];
ABAddressBookRef addressbook = ABAddressBookCreate();
__block BOOL accessGranted = NO;

if (ABAddressBookRequestAccessWithCompletion != NULL)
{
    if (ABAddressBookGetAuthorizationStatus() == kABAuthorizationStatusNotDetermined)
    {
        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 if(ABAddressBookGetAuthorizationStatus() == kABAuthorizationStatusAuthorized)
    {
        accessGranted = YES;
    }
    else if (ABAddressBookGetAuthorizationStatus()==kABAuthorizationStatusDenied)
    {
        accessGranted = NO;
    }
    else if (ABAddressBookGetAuthorizationStatus()==kABAuthorizationStatusRestricted){
        accessGranted = NO;
    }
    else
    {
        accessGranted = YES;
    }


}
else
{
    accessGranted = YES;
}
[prefs setBool:accessGranted forKey:@"addressBook"];

NSLog(@"[prefs boolForKey:@'addressBook']--->%d",[prefs boolForKey:@"addressBook"]);
[prefs synchronize];
CFRelease(addressbook);
}

Answer 4

Try with this: 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) {
      // First time access has been granted, add the contact
      [self _addContactToAddressBook];
    });
  }
  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
  }