Whats the best way to handle realtime client-server communication for ios?

Question

Hello there i am working on an education focues application that works like written below:

1- "Teacher" user has a class, with "Student" users listed in main screen

2- Teacher starts an exam

3- Student users will get a notification that the exam has been started.

4- Teacher will observe the students actions in realtime (i.e when u student answers a question, teacher will automatically see which question is answered and if it is correct or wrong)

The application will be an iPad application and serverside will use (sadly) Microsoft WCF.

Here are things that i thought about things that i could do:

• Establishing a socket connection with teacher and students via server like a irc chatroom on background
• Using push notifications to receive student actions (somehow without showing any "push" notification
• (Worst case scenario), teacher's device will periodically send requests about student's exam status

What do you think? What is the best way to do?

Thanks for helping.

Answer 1

Take a look on websocket.

https://github.com/square/SocketRocket

Maybe this lib is your friend, but i can't help you on server side job.