Get Camera Roll Photos without UIImagePickerController

Question

I was wondering how one can get the photos off of iPhone's camera roll / photo library without opening up a UIImagePickerController. I've been trying to Google this but it always points me to the UIImagePickerController which I'm reluctant to use since it will open up another view controller. I know this is possible since Facebook Messenger has this feature. It presents my camera photo options without opening up iPhone's native photo app. For reference this is the UIImagePickerController

and this is the Facebook Messenger App

Answer 1

As my comment suggested:

You have to use the AssetsLibrary framework: #import <AssetsLibrary/AssetsLibrary.h> Here is a good link as well to help you get started: http://codemastergabriel.wordpress.com/2013/11/22/access-mediaphotosvideos-using-alassetslibrary-iosobjective-c/