Learning iCloud Data Management: A Hands-On Guide to Structuring Data for iOS and OS X

Using Property Lists for Storing and Syncing

You rarely need to look inside the AddressBook API: you usually use accessors and even higher-level methods. However, it is a good idea to know the basic outline of what’s going on—if only because it’s the same basic design pattern you’ll find with events and reminders as well as a number of other classes throughout Cocoa (and other systems). It’s a design pattern (architecture, if you prefer) that you may have already used yourself. If you haven’t already used it, you may want to consider using it. From the perspective of iCloud, this design pattern helps to build a robust and easily synchronized data structure.

If you’ve used AddressBook, you have seen that you can manage people and groups. As is ...