title: How to get a ALAssetRepresentation of a shared photostream ALAsset?
body: <p>When I try to access pictures from a photo stream, sometimes the <code>[asset defaultRepresentation]</code> method returns nil.</p>
  
  <p>According to the documentation this can occur if the asset is not (yet) available locally.</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>This method returns nil for assets from a shared photo stream that are not yet available 
    locally. If the asset becomes available in the future, an ALAssetsLibraryChangedNotification 
    notification is posted.</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>Once I view the photo in the Photos.app it becomes available for my app too, but obviously I'd like to have my app trigger the "download locally" event. </p>
  
  <p>I looked at the <a href="https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#samplecode/MyImagePicker/Introduction/Intro.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">MyImagePicker</a> sample code from Apple, but it exhibits the same behaviour (only a thumbnail is available)</p>
  
  <p>How can I make the asset available locally?</p>
  
  <p>Edit: Since Apple introduced the <a href="https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/ios/documentation/Photos/Reference/Photos_Framework/index.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Photos.framework</a> in iOS8, and using ALAssets became deprecated in iOS9, this will probably never be fixed.</p>