How to use the iPhone Network Activity Spinner

As an iPhone developer, how do you get that little status bar spinner to appear?

It’s piece of cake once you know the proper incantation.

[UIApplication sharedApplication].networkActivityIndicatorVisible = YES;
[UIApplication sharedApplication].networkActivityIndicatorVisible = NO;

Of course, this doesn’t work, or may not appear to work. It works fine on the device (iPhone or iPod touch) and it works fine in the iPhone Simulator if you are connected to the internet via an ethernet cable. However, if you are using wireless, the activity indicator will not work on the iPhone Simulator.

So watch out! And enjoy your network activity spinner. If you’d like to learn more, I’ll be teaching an iPhone Training Workshop from April 22-24.