Native iOS features

Build an iPhone app that uses your contacts

Borel builds iPhone apps that pick people from Contacts. With Apple's contact picker, people choose exactly who to add, and the app sees only those people, with no permission prompt at all. Describe what your app does with the people in it, and Borel writes it in Swift with Apple's Contacts frameworks.

Ideas

What you can build with contacts

A few apps people make with it. Describe yours in your own words.

  • A birthday list

    Pick friends from Contacts and see whose birthday is next.

  • A gift planner

    Ideas and a budget for each person you buy for.

  • A team roster

    Players picked from Contacts, with their numbers and positions.

  • A keep-in-touch list

    People you mean to call, and when you last did.

  • A wedding guest list

    Guests picked from Contacts, with who has replied and who is bringing someone.

Try it

A prompt to start from

Copy it, or start with it and change it to fit your idea.

The prompt
“A birthday list: I pick friends from my contacts and see whose birthday is next, with a countdown.”

From words to your iPhone

Three steps, no code

  • 1

    Describe it

    Say what the app does in plain words, or start from the prompt above. No code, and no Mac.

  • 2

    Watch it build

    Borel writes the Swift, compiles it with Xcode on its own Mac and opens it in the iOS Simulator, streamed into your browser.

  • 3

    Put it on your iPhone

    Borel Companion installs it over a cable the first time, then over Wi-Fi, and while it runs it puts each new version on by itself.

How Borel handles it

Written in Swift, with Apple's own frameworks

What Borel takes care of for you, so the feature works the way iPhone owners expect.

  • Apple's picker, no prompt

    People pick from Apple's own contact list, which looks and searches like the Contacts app, and the app gets only who they chose.

  • The address book, when needed

    An app that truly needs every contact asks once instead, with a sentence Borel writes for your app.

  • Kept where you want

    The people picked stay on the iPhone, or, with sign-in, go to your app's cloud with the rest of its data.

See it in the iOS Simulator in your browser while you build, then pick from your own contacts on your iPhone with Borel Companion.

Your Apple ID

Works with a free Apple ID

Yes. Borel Companion puts the app on your own iPhone with a free Apple ID, which keeps up to 3 of your apps there, and Companion renews them every 7 days for you.

Frequently asked questions

No. With Apple's picker, the app gets only the people you choose.

Yes, for the people you pick: their name, numbers, emails and birthday, as Contacts has them.

Yes. The picker can take one person or several at a time, whichever suits your app.

Not with the picker: nothing is shared until someone picks a person. An app that reads the whole address book asks once, with its own sentence.

Yes. Ask in the chat, or choose Contacts from Device in the chat's + menu.

Build your app with contacts

Start from the prompt above, change it to fit your idea, and Borel builds it while you watch.