REST API Client Library for Android

Solution 1:

Best implimentation I have seen based on Google IO Pro Tips 2010 is the RoboSpice library, which is REST based and very cleverly works with the Activity lifecycle as to not leak memory.

Quick infographic the library is here

• Loaders are designed for database, not REST, they are reset on activity reset meaning you loose your data.
• Async task, just no.
• Intent Service + Result receiver is basically how RoboSpice work, so if you are building your own lib, I would take this approach!
• Service is also good, similar to the IntentService Method, but IntentService works a little better in this instance.

The Service method maybe better, look at the robospice service they use an ExecutorService which terminates the Service when it has run out of Requests to work through, this is more Java concurrency than Android specific. Main thing to note that the service runs whilst processing requests then terminates its self if their are none left.

The advantage of using the ExecutorService or any type of thread pool, is that you can define how many requests you can run at once. unless you have a very fast connection 2-4 is the most i would ever suggest.

Solution 2:

I've used Retrofit and it's really good library which provide an easy structure for managing endpoints and parse data/collections/object.

The documentation is complete enough to write easily you code.

CQFD > go for it