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This may not be a programming question, but I don't know where to ask for this and it's still related.

We all know that the checkbox and drop-down menu is a UI paradigm brought in from HTML or web interface.

I'm not asking for code implementations here. A google search had produced many results. Although if anyone is willing to share that's great.

So the question is: Is this a good design approach if we just want to provide a checkbox or drop-down functionality? (e.g. for quizzes, or forms)

+1  A: 

My personal opinion is that creating a checkbox or drop-down menu UI element would be a non-standard approach to how the iPhone UI is supposed to look & feel across all apps.

You should consider an approach that uses table views instead, with drill-downs into another table view, and use the checkmark accessory to indicate a selected element out of a set.

If you absolutely must use checkboxes and drop-down menus, you should consider embedding an HTML page with those elements instead.

Shaggy Frog
That's also my personal opinion.But, embedding an HTML page is not convenient, if we want to obtain its value from UIWebView. It seems the custom UI using checkbox graphics is the only way. I'm looking for different implementation of checkbox, but not the web checkbox style or standard UITableView checkmarks.
Jesse Armand
I guess I don't understand, Jesse. If you agree that using those kinds of elements is a Bad Idea, then why do you want to use them?
Shaggy Frog
A: 

As far as drop-downs are concerned you always have the option of the UIPicker, which can be easily embedded in a UIActionSheet. I've used this setup in the app I'm developing and it works great.

Check boxes map directly to UISwitch elements, if they make sense for the data you are using.

Eric Schweichler
UISwitch is only used for two states: on / off.
Jesse Armand
So is a check box, on/off. Unless you are referring to the fact that an on/off state might not make sense for certain uses, which I mentioned above.If you need something like a radio button (select one of many) there is always the UISegmentedControl...
Eric Schweichler