Facebook Places in iOS SDK without authentication

Question

I've written an iPhone App that allows user login via Facebook AND login via username/password as an alternative. At some point, a user can add a location to some action he does. I use facebook places for that, but as I found out, facebook places are only available when an access token is provided. Ie: all non-facebook users of my app cannot select facebook places.

Am I right?

As stated in FBPlacePickerViewController.m line 341 (iOS sdk 3.1.1):

// Place queries require a session, so do nothing if we don't have one.

If that is the case I will definitely have to look for another places database...

Bjoern

Answer 1

Ok, according to the Facebook docs, a Token is neidend, indeed. i have three options:

1. use a certain account in the app to always get a token. This could also be a Page or app account. This requires putting your app secret into the app, which even Facebook won't recommend.

2. use a certain account on your own server. The account credentials are much more secured there (hopefully), but i would have to implement the whole place picking stuff there and forward it to the app. Shouldn't be that difficult.

3. Use other frameworks and databases like yelp, foursquare, google etc. Factual.com seems a good source, too. Pricing might be an issue.