All mobile applications, no matter what they are about, they have one common and obvious characteristic: They offer interaction, which means that they are not static, but require input or actions needed to be taken by users from time to time in order to function properly. One quite usual behavior, is the ability to provide ways that allow users to make choices or take decisions where it’s needed, and ultimately act that way on the applications’ data or functionalities. iOS SDK provides a pre-made action-taking view controller, the UIActionSheet.
Action sheets consist of a really convenient and fast way to display a bunch of options that the user should select from, and it is widely used in great number of applications. Its disadvantage though is that it adopts the iOS’s look and feel without being able to be graphically modified, therefore it might not fit to applications with customized GUI.
Beyond action sheets, another very important and cool tool designed especially for the iPad, is the UIPopoverController. A popover controller is actually a container which is used to display content on top of another content. What makes it unique is the fact that it can be displayed almost everywhere around the screen of the iPad, but usually it’s shown near to the button that caused its appearing with a nice arrow pointing to the button’s direction. iOS by default encloses action sheets in popover controllers on iPad, but they can also be manually created for custom content.