Cocoa Touch
UIKit
For iOS, the Cocoa Touch frameworks focus on touch-based interfaces and optimization. The UIKit provides the basic tools and infrastructure you need to implement graphical, event-driven applications in iOS.
Foundation
The building blocks of any Cocoa application, including collection classes and all the base objects used throughout Cocoa.
Multi-Touch Gestures
The iOS frameworks include APIs to alert you to many standard gestures, or you can hand-code your own gesture awareness.
Network Services
Store Kit
Unlock features, sell new services, providing added value to your application using the Store Kit framework to enable in-app purchases of new content.
Push Notifications
Send over-the-air alerts, such as news updates or social networking status changes, using Apple's Push Notification service.
Game Kit
Easily add multi-player capabilities to your games with peer to peer network connectivity, using a Bluetooth connection - no pairing required.
Core Location
Using information from the present network connection, and GPS signals where available, you application can quickly determine the present location.
Map Kit
Add map features directly into your application, with full support for panning and zooming, custom annotations, showing current location, and even geocoding.
Networking
BSD sockets for standard network communication, and Bonjour for a simple way to discover other devices on the network.
Media
Graphics
Frameworks range from Quartz 2D primitives, the easy-to-use Core Animation for awesome effects, to industry standard OpenGL ES for creating spectacular 3D games.
Audio
Everything for playing videos, music, and in-game media: Media Player framework for full-screen video, HTTP Live Streaming, access to the iPod library, and Core Audio and OpenAL for sound.
Camera and Photos
Import images from the device’s photo library, easily take a new photo to add to your application, or create augmented reality experiences with a live camera feed.
iPod Media Library
Take advantage of the iPod player powers to play music in the background of your application and access the full media library on the device.
Core Services
iPhone Simulator
The Mac-based Simulator speeds the round trip process of developing with fast application startup, and accelerated stepping through the debugger.
Inter-App Messaging
Easily share data with the iOS system applications using a simple URL-based model, or register a custom URL type to enable sharing with your own app.
Cut, Copy and Paste
System-wide support for cut, copy, and paste makes it easy to share more than just plain words to and from your application, with support for rich text, HTML, and images using a shared clipboard.
Accelerometer
A robust API for tracking the position of your iOS device in three-dimensional space, with high sample rates perfect for games.
Address Book
Read and write to the device’s shared contacts database so your application can tie into a central repository of friends, family, and coworkers.
Compass
Full access to the hardware compass, when available, to employ along with location and map services, also available as core services of iOS.
Accessories
Create a great experience for hardware devices via the 30-pin connector, using a custom application on the iPhone’s screen to control the plugged-in accessory.
