How to determine if an NSDate is today?

You can compare date components:

NSDateComponents *otherDay = [[NSCalendar currentCalendar] components:NSCalendarUnitEra | NSCalendarUnitYear | NSCalendarUnitMonth | NSCalendarUnitDay fromDate:aDate];
NSDateComponents *today = [[NSCalendar currentCalendar] components:NSCalendarUnitEra | NSCalendarUnitYear | NSCalendarUnitMonth | NSCalendarUnitDay fromDate:[NSDate date]];
if([today day] == [otherDay day] &&
   [today month] == [otherDay month] &&
   [today year] == [otherDay year] &&
   [today era] == [otherDay era]) {
    //do stuff
}

Edit:

I like stefan's method more, I think it makes for a cleaner and more understandable if statement:

NSCalendar *cal = [NSCalendar currentCalendar];
NSDateComponents *components = [cal components:(NSCalendarUnitEra | NSCalendarUnitYear | NSCalendarUnitMonth | NSCalendarUnitDay) fromDate:[NSDate date]];
NSDate *today = [cal dateFromComponents:components];
components = [cal components:(NSCalendarUnitEra | NSCalendarUnitYear | NSCalendarUnitMonth | NSCalendarUnitDay) fromDate:aDate];
NSDate *otherDate = [cal dateFromComponents:components];

if([today isEqualToDate:otherDate]) {
    //do stuff
}

Chris, I've incorporated your suggestion. I had to look up what era was, so for anyone else who doesn't know, it distinguishes between BC and AD. This is probably unnecessary for most people, but it's easy to check and adds some certainty, so I've included it. If you're going for speed, this probably isn't a good method anyway.

NOTE as with many answers on SO, after 7 years this is totally out of date. In Swift now just use .isDateInToday

This is an offshoot to your question, but if you want to print an NSDate with "Today" or "Yesterday", use the function

- (void)setDoesRelativeDateFormatting:(BOOL)b

for NSDateFormatter

I would try to get today's date normalized to midnight and the second date, normalize to midnight then compare if it is the same NSDate.

From an Apple example here's how you normalize to midnight today's date, do the same for the second date and compare:

NSCalendar * gregorian = [[NSCalendar alloc]
                               initWithCalendarIdentifier:NSGregorianCalendar];
NSDateComponents * components =
    [gregorian components:
                 (NSYearCalendarUnit|NSMonthCalendarUnit|NSDayCalendarUnit)
                 fromDate:[NSDate date]];
NSDate * today = [gregorian dateFromComponents:components];

You could also check the time interval between the date you have, and the current date:

[myDate timeIntervalSinceNow]

This will give you the time interval, in seconds, between myDate and the current date/time.

Link.

Edit: Note to everyone: I'm well aware that [myDate timeIntervalSinceNow] does not unambiguously determine whether myDate is today.

I am leaving this answer as is so that if someone is looking for something similar and [myDate timeIntervalSinceNow] is useful, they may find it here.

This could probably be reworked as an NSDate category, but i used:

// Seconds per day (24h * 60m * 60s)
#define kSecondsPerDay 86400.0f

+ (BOOL) dateIsToday:(NSDate*)dateToCheck
{
    // Split today into components
    NSCalendar* gregorian = [[NSCalendar alloc] initWithCalendarIdentifier:NSGregorianCalendar];
    NSDateComponents* comps = [gregorian components:(NSYearCalendarUnit|NSMonthCalendarUnit|NSDayCalendarUnit|NSHourCalendarUnit|NSMinuteCalendarUnit|NSSecondCalendarUnit) 
                                        fromDate:[NSDate date]];

    // Set to this morning 00:00:00
    [comps setHour:0];
    [comps setMinute:0];
    [comps setSecond:0];
    NSDate* theMidnightHour = [gregorian dateFromComponents:comps];
    [gregorian release];

    // Get time difference (in seconds) between date and then
    NSTimeInterval diff = [dateToCheck timeIntervalSinceDate:theMidnightHour];
    return ( diff>=0.0f && diff<kSecondsPerDay );
}

(However, comparing the two date strings as in the original question almost feels 'cleaner'..)