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I'm trying to figure out how to make an iPhone application allow multiple users (that have it installed) share data among them. Now, the tricky part is that I don't want to host a server at my place (very poor ISP services), so I would opt for an online hosting solution. Next, by data I understand them to be able to, let's say, post a comment that would become readable to all the other users and to see what other users have said. So, in my mind, I'm thinking of either having a file remotely hosted that could be accessed by multiple users at the same time, or a database of some sort or anything like that.

Caleb
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Daniel
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You haven't given us much to go on -- it's not even clear what your question is. If you're just asking how to go about this, I'd suggest the following steps:

  1. Figure out what, specifically, you want the app to do, what data it will share, and who the data will be shared with. Is this an app that you're going to distribute publicly? Will all users share the same data, or will groups of users share with each other but not outside the group? How big is the data, and how is it structured? Can any part of the data change at any time (like a shared document) or will the data just be updated (like a SMS conversation)?

  2. Decide how you want to host the data. If you'll need to serve a lot of users, you'll want some sort of database. If you'll need to serve a LOT of users, you'll want to make sure that your solution will scale easily. There are lots of hosting companies that provide access to databases like Oracle or MySQL, and that may be enough for your purposes. Or, you might want to look into some of the web services options, such as those offered by Google and Amazon. These can be fairly easy to use and have the advantage that they'll scale very well.

  3. Get to work. You'll probably want to build a very basic version of your app around the same time that you're getting the server side working, so that it's easier to test. Once the server side is working and reliable, you can shift the focus back to building out the rest of your app.

Caleb
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  • thank you for your answer and sorry if my question isn't clear enough. my app is going to be distributed publicly and it will work something like this: a user adds a comment which, based on other users location (if they are near the place where the comment was placed) can be seen or not. I'm thinking that the database will be big but will mostly consist of text strings (alongside with the location and the date when it was placed) so I'm not thinking at a huge database. Furthermore, a comment will be automatically deleted 8 hours after it was posted, this should decrease the database size. – Daniel Jul 28 '11 at 13:55