Get user profile details (especially email address) from Twitter in iOS

Question

I am aiming to get a user's details based on his/her Twitter account. Now first of all, let me explain what I want to do.

In my case, user will be presented an option to Sign-up with Twitter account. So, based on user's Twitter account, I want to be able to get user details (e.g. email-id, name, profile picture, birth date, gender etc..) and save those details in database. Now, many people will probably suggest me to use ACAccount and ACAccountStore, a class that provides an interface for accessing, manipulating, and storing accounts. But in my case, I want to sign up user, even if user has not configured an account for Twitter in iOS Settings App. I want user to navigate to login screen of Twitter (in Safari or in App itself, or using any other alternative).

I have also referred the documentation of Twitter having API list here. But I am a lot confused how user should be presented a login screen to log into the Twitter account and how I will get profile information. Should I use UIWebView, or redirect user to Safari or adopt another way for that ?

Answer 1

Finally, after having a long conversation with [email protected], I got my App whitelisted. Here is the story:

• Send mail to [email protected] with some details about your App like Consumer key, App Store link of an App, Link to privacy policy, Metadata, Instructions on how to log into our App. Mention in mail that you want to access user email address inside your App.

• They will review your App and reply to you within 2-3 business days.

• Once they say that your App is whitelisted, update your App's settings in Twitter Developer portal. Sign in to apps.twitter.com and:

  1. On the 'Settings' tab, add a terms of service and privacy policy URL
  2. On the 'Permissions' tab, change your token's scope to request email. This option will only been seen, once your App gets whitelisted.

Put your hands on code:

Agree with statement of Vizllx: "Twitter has provided a beautiful framework for that, you just have to integrate it in your app."

Get user email address

-(void)requestUserEmail
    {
        if ([[Twitter sharedInstance] session]) {

            TWTRShareEmailViewController *shareEmailViewController =
            [[TWTRShareEmailViewController alloc]
             initWithCompletion:^(NSString *email, NSError *error) {
                 NSLog(@"Email %@ | Error: %@", email, error);
             }];

            [self presentViewController:shareEmailViewController
                               animated:YES
                             completion:nil];
        } else {
            // Handle user not signed in (e.g. attempt to log in or show an alert)
        }
    }

Get user profile

-(void)usersShow:(NSString *)userID
{
    NSString *statusesShowEndpoint = @"https://api.twitter.com/1.1/users/show.json";
    NSDictionary *params = @{@"user_id": userID};

    NSError *clientError;
    NSURLRequest *request = [[[Twitter sharedInstance] APIClient]
                             URLRequestWithMethod:@"GET"
                             URL:statusesShowEndpoint
                             parameters:params
                             error:&clientError];

    if (request) {
        [[[Twitter sharedInstance] APIClient]
         sendTwitterRequest:request
         completion:^(NSURLResponse *response,
                      NSData *data,
                      NSError *connectionError) {
             if (data) {
                 // handle the response data e.g.
                 NSError *jsonError;
                 NSDictionary *json = [NSJSONSerialization
                                       JSONObjectWithData:data
                                       options:0
                                       error:&jsonError];
                 NSLog(@"%@",[json description]);
             }
             else {
                 NSLog(@"Error code: %ld | Error description: %@", (long)[connectionError code], [connectionError localizedDescription]);
             }
         }];
    }
    else {
        NSLog(@"Error: %@", clientError);
    }
}

Hope it helps !!!