Hide a slow network connection

Downloading to the device can be painfully slow. Even fast 3g connections lags when it comes to response times compared to wired networks (It's not all about mb/s). This mean that you have to take this in consideration while designing a Client-Server application for the phone.

Threading is the answer to this. Do your network fetches in the background and you "might" be able to deliver a feeling of responsiveness to the user. Many apps do this by showing an UIAvtivityIndicatorView while downloading information, like this:

This is a great way of telling your clients, Hey!, I'm working here!.. but it will require your client to wait..

You can however solve this neater in many situations by performing background tasks while the user is scrolling though your UI, that does not require the data being downloaded. If you for e.g. know that the user soon will come to a screen that requires downloaded data, Start downloading it sooner rather then later. of course you can argue about the increased network use and battery drainage, but it all comes down to your decision as an developer.

Today I did one of these sneaky background downloads in this interface:

This interface has the button "Choose category from list". This list is being fetched from the server. 

I could have solved this by presenting an UIActivityIndicatorView either when loading this ViewController or when loading the UIPickerview that popes up when you click the button.

Instead I solved it by disabling the button itself and giving it the .text property "Downloading list..."

until the list is downloaded. This way the user can roam around the interface and not be prompted to wait, while still knowing that a download is being performed.

Think about how your user will use your application, and try to be one step ahead at all times!

Code on!