How many concurrent network connections should I use when downloading?

Question

I want to download a list of potentially hundreds of images to the SD card while the user waits. I would like to get the maximum throughput but still be a responsible app. I'll be saving the downloaded data as it fills the InputStream as in this answer.

What considerations should I keep in mind? Is there a limit on the number of InputStreams? Will adding more concurrency make more or less effective use of radio power (most of the data is downstream)?

Answer 1

Take a look at some of the articles on the AT&T site about how to be efficient when writing an app that uses the network a lot. http://developer.att.com/developer/forward.jsp?passedItemId=7200042

Their ARO tool will also help you to ensure that your application makes efficient use of the network and both app performance and battery usage is minimized. http://developer.att.com/developer/legalAgreementPage.jsp?passedItemId=9700312

The recently released Android traceview tool that comes with the Android SDK will also help you http://developer.android.com/tools/debugging/debugging-tracing.html