The iPhone OS Core Services Layer

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The iPhone Core Services layer provides much of the foundation on which the above layers are built and consists of the following frameworks.

Address Book framework (AddressBook.framework)

The Address Book framework provides programmatic access to the iPhone Address Book contact database allowing applications to retrieve and modify contact entries.

Core Data Framework (CoreData.framework)

This framework is provided to ease the creation of data modeling and storage in Model-View-Controller (MVC) based applications. Use of the Core Data framework significantly reduces the amount of code that needs to be written to perform common tasks when working with structured data in an application.

Core Foundation Framework (CoreFoundation.framework)

The Core Foundation is a C-based Framework that provides basic functionality such as data types, string manipulation, raw block data management, URL manipulation, threads and run loops, date and times, basic XML manipulation and port and socket communication. Additional XML capabilities beyond those included with this framework are provided via the libXML2 library. Though this is a C-based interface, most of the capabilities of the Core Foundation framework are also available with Objective-C wrappers via the Foundation Framework.

Foundation Framework (Foundation.framework)

The Foundation framework is the standard Objective-C framework that will be familiar to those that have programmed in Objective-C on other platforms (most likely Mac OS X). Essentially, this consists of Objective-C wrappers around much of the C-based Core Foundation Framework.

Core Location Framework (CoreLocation.framework)

The Core Location framework allows you to obtain the current geographical location of the device (latitude and longitude) and compass readings from with your own applications. The method used by the device to provide coordinates will depend on the data available at the time the information is requested and the hardware support provided by the particular iPhone model on which the app is running (GPS and compass are only featured on recent models). This will either be based on GPS readings, WiFi network data or cell tower triangulation (or some combination of the three).

Store Kit Framework (StoreKit.framework)

The purpose of the Store Kit framework is to facilitate commerce transactions between your application and the Apple App Store. Prior to version 3.0 of the iPhone OS, it was only possible to charge a customer for an app at the point that they purchased it from the App Store. iPhone OS 3.0 introduced the concept of the “in app purchase” whereby the user can be given the option make additional payments from within the application. This might, for example, involve implementing a subscription model for an application, purchasing additional functionality or even buying a faster car for you to drive in a racing game.

SQLite library

Allows for a lightweight, SQL based database to be created and manipulated from within your iPhone application.

In the next chapter we will look at The iPhone OS Core OS Layer.