PopoverControllers for iPhone

In case you ever wanted to use a popoverController for the iPhone you’ve probably stumbled upon this reference: Popover controllers are for use exclusively on iPad devices.

Until iOS 8 one had to build a custom solution or use one of the open source implementations like FPPopover.

UIPopoverPresentationController to the rescue

Starting from iOS 8 one can use UIPopoverPresentationController to present popovers. As of iOS 9 the old UIPopoverController is also deprecated. Setting up a ViewController to be presented as a popover is pretty simple.

In your storyboard you create a segue to the controller you want to display as a popover. This time you chose Action Segue > Present As Popover

Before the presentation of the viewController you have to do some setup (e.g. in prepareForSegue(segue: sender:)):

segue.destinationViewController?.popoverPresentationController.delegate = self

In order to conform be the delegate self has to conform to UIPopoverPresentationControllerDelegate:

extension YourController: UIPopoverPresentationControllerDelegate {
    func adaptivePresentationStyleForPresentationController(controller: UIPresentationController) -> UIModalPresentationStyle {
        return .None
    }
}

Note: you have to return .None and not .Popover here!

Of course UIPopoverPresentationController is also available for iPads.

For a quick start you might want to look at this example project.