Question

I need to compare 2 strings, looking at the first letter only.

Is there a method to compare A to Á, and recognize it as A, without the ´?

Answer 1

NSString has a diacritic-insensitive comparison mode which will do what you’re after.

// should return NSOrderedSame, i.e. identical
[@"Apple" compare:@"Ápple" 
          options:NSDiacriticInsensitiveSearch]

If you want it to be case-insensitive as well:

// ditto
[@"APPLE" compare:@"Ápple" 
          options:NSDiacriticInsensitiveSearch | NSCaseInsensitiveSearch]