XML, images, streaming video and "excessive volumes of data"

Question

My first application was submitted to App Store and failed to be approved owing to "excessive volumes of data over the cellular network". I don't know how they test this but since it's basically a news application which displays various articles, images and streamed videos, I would go and blame the videos for the rejection. I can't test it for sure because there is no network stats in Ipod Touch and that's the only device I can access.

And so I'm curious..

1) Does anyone have any idea how Apple "runs" bandwidth test?

2) What are ways I can improve my XML loading, image displaying and video streaming to reduce bandwidth (in case user uses cellular network)? For images, I use asynchronous loading (maybe that can be a problem if lots of images can be requested at the same time?) I'm looking at http://allseeing-i.com/ASIHTTPRequest/ which could help with XML and maybe image loading but I don't understand if I can use ASIHTTPRequest to stream a video.

3) Is there any way to test network usage in iPhone simulator?

Answer 1

I expect the streaming video is the problem. Apple want you to use HTTP Live Streaming if you want to stream video over the cellular network.

See question 1236788 for more information.

Answer 2

They run bandwidth tests by looking at byte counters for the network interface I think. You can do the same in the simulator by making sure no other networking apps are running on your mac and then look at the output of the 'netstat -i -b' command. Or use a fancy utility to monitor bandwidth usage.

Not helpful, but I'd like to say this anyway: Apple's claims are silly in my opinion. Why do they care.