iOS offers a range of modern, sophisticated, and easy-to-use networking technologies. From the fine-grained control of BSD Sockets, to finding other devices or computers with Bonjour, to display of web content with the WebKit-powered Safari web browser, you have many options for accomplishing a wide range of networking tasks. Your application has access to these features through high-level frameworks that make it easy to connect to, render, and interact with information anywhere in the world.
Find Others Using Bonjour
Bonjour is the powerful zero configuration protocol from Apple that makes it easy to find systems and services on a local network automatically. Many services and applications on Mac OS X that have networking capabilities use Bonjour, from printer discovery, to chatting in iChat, to music sharing in iTunes. Bonjour includes a sophisticated, yet easy-to-use, programming interface that is accessible from Cocoa Touch or low-level C language. View developer resources
WebKit Framework
iOS makes it easy to add network capability to your application. The high-level WebKit framework gives you complete control over locally or remotely accessed web content. The framework makes it easy to render HTML, store cookies, cache responses, store credentials, and authenticate users. Your application can interact with the Web as a first-class information and communication source without having to write a lot of low-level networking or parsing code.
Peer to Peer
The GameKit framework is a high-level set of API that make it incredibly simple to create ad-hoc networks among friends in close proximity, using the Bluetooth radio in iPhone or iPod touch. Built using Bonjour and the powerful BSD networking layer that underpins iOS, GameKit handles the entire experience of connecting two devices over the network. These peer to peer connections are great for sharing information quickly, or turning a single player game into a multi-player party.
BSD Sockets
BSD Sockets is the fundamental network programming interface on iOS; all of the higher-level frameworks are based on it. It is a good choice for maximum performance and flexibility. Because it is the de-facto standard for UNIX network programming, BSD Sockets support in iOS means it is often easy to port networking code over from other platforms.
