Re:Get Rid of the App Store’s “Top” Lists
by zimpenfish on Tuesday June 18, 2013 @10:19AM
(#5899307)
Multiple requests that the client is paying for over a possibly flaky network connection and now you have to handle all sorts of edge cases and errors that you didn't before.
Why bother?
The app store (at least in the UK) has always been hideously slow and rubbish, even on a fast connection. I don't even try on cellular data anymore (to look at stuff, not even download/update.)
As I said, this wouldn't involve much more in the way of data transfer than the current setup. I assume that 15 apps instead of 10 preloading is the same order of magnitude; the latency is the kicker, not the tiny bandwidth required for metadata and icons.
It means it'll take multiple requests to get all the results, sure, but if you weigh the initial request statistically (for the first 10, I think we'll need 12..) and so on, you can avoid even that.