Is there an alternative method to check the network availability in iphone instead of service reachability?

Question

I'm creating a simple iphone application and there I need to check the internet availability. To check this most the forums recommended to use the reachability class. Based on that I have implemented the following code.

struct sockaddr_in zeroAddress;  
bzero(&zeroAddress, sizeof(zeroAddress));  
zeroAddress.sin_len = sizeof(zeroAddress);  
zeroAddress.sin_family = AF_INET;  

SCNetworkReachabilityRef defaultRouteReachability = SCNetworkReachabilityCreateWithAddress(NULL, (struct sockaddr *)&zeroAddress);  
SCNetworkReachabilityFlags flags;  
BOOL didRetrieveFlags = SCNetworkReachabilityGetFlags(defaultRouteReachability, &flags);  
CFRelease(defaultRouteReachability); 

if (!didRetrieveFlags) {   
    isInternetConnectionAvailable = NO;  
}  

BOOL isReachable = flags & kSCNetworkFlagsReachable;  
BOOL needsConnection = flags & kSCNetworkFlagsConnectionRequired; 

NSURL *testURL = [NSURL URLWithString:serviceEndPoint];  
NSURLRequest *testRequest = [NSURLRequest requestWithURL:testURL  cachePolicy:NSURLRequestReloadIgnoringLocalCacheData timeoutInterval:5.0];  
[[[NSURLConnection alloc] initWithRequest:testRequest delegate:self] autorelease];  

However, I wish to have a simple alternative method to get the network status. In iphone it displays the network status itself,if i can reuse it then the overhead of checking the availability through my application can be eliminated. I found some new way of getting it through notifications, but still I couldn't get more details about it.

If anyone come across with a simple method to get it done this please share with me.

Answer 1

The most easiest way (and the one I always use) is to just request a resource from the server. Be sure to disallow any caching, and check if it comes back with a result.