Chapter 6. Retrieving remote data
This chapter covers
- Retrieving remote data
- Understanding data serialization and interacting with external services such as Twitter
- Sending advanced requests using iOS libraries
- Using web views to display web pages
- Using popular open source networking libraries
Mobile applications are by their mobile nature connected somehow with remote computers. Even apparently static applications need remote communications to send stats, retrieve updates, or just show the user a message. Take, for example, our Hello Time application, where we were relying exclusively on device time: what if the user moves through different time zones or the device’s clock is off? In that case, we would have to communicate with a time server connected to a very accurate clock, with communication taking the form of the client (our application) sending a message using a specific protocol over the physical network to the server, waiting for the response, and, once the response is available, reading and processing it.