Networking on a Mobile Device

There are many, 0:00 many different ways of connecting to the internet in our world today. 0:00 Cable modems, DSL, wi-fi, cellular, satellite, and so on. 0:04 Any data we send back and 0:10 forth goes through multiple different networks along the way. 0:11 At any point during the journey something could happen. 0:15 Either on our end as a client, on the server side or with the network itself. 0:18 As developers, we need to make sure that our code and apps 0:24 can adapt to these changing conditions, insulating our users from problems. 0:27 When writing apps that involve any sort of networking code, 0:32 we need to keep the following points in mind. 0:35 Transfer only as much data as needed to complete the task. 0:38 Every network call costs the user time and battery life. 0:42 It can also cost them money if they're on a network that charges for data usage. 0:46 Avoid network timeouts. 0:50 Mobile connections can be slower and 0:53 you don't want something to stop loading just because it took too long. 0:55 Let users cancel networking operations. 0:58 Design interfaces that give users control over a network transaction. 1:02 For example, if you're building a podcasting or 1:06 video streaming app, the file size could be large. 1:09 Allow the user to pause the download and resume it when they choose. 1:12 Handle failures gracefully. 1:17 There are many reasons why a network might suddenly fail. 1:20 When this happens, we need to ensure that we account for these situations and 1:23 allow our apps to continue working as much as possible. 1:28 Finally, we must always keep the users security in mind. 1:32 You never know how secure your connection is. 1:36 So make sure to always take efforts to protect user data in 1:37 your application when writing networking code. 1:41