In addition to playing existing media, you can also make apps that allow users to create their own content. In this section, you will learn how you can use a built-in component to enable users to take a picture. You will also learn how you can use a raw video feed to record a video. If you want to follow along with the samples in this section, make sure to grab the starter project for Captured from this chapter's code bundle.
The starter project contains a couple of view controllers and some connected outlets and actions. Note that there is a UIViewController extension in the project, too. This extension includes a helper method that makes displaying an alert to the user a little bit simpler. This extension will be used to show an alert that informs the user when their photo or video is stored to the camera roll.
Since a user's camera and photo library are considered very privacy-sensitive, you need to make sure that you add the following privacy-related keys to the app's Info.plist:
- Privacy - Camera Usage Description: this property is required in order to access the camera so you can take pictures and record video.
- Privacy - Microphone Usage Description: you must add this property so that your videos record audio, as well as images.
- Privacy - Photo Library Additions Usage Description: this property allows you to write photos to the user's photo library.
Make sure to provide a good description for the privacy keys, so the user knows why you need access to their camera, microphone, and photo library. The better your description is, the more likely the user is to allow your app to access the associated privacy-sensitive information. After adding the keys, you are ready to see how you can take a picture using the built-in UIImagePickerController component of the UIKit.