Trade-offs of Persistence Mechanisms

At this point, you can start thinking about the tradeoffs between the common ways that iOS applications can store their data Which is best for your application? Use Table 17.1 to help you decide.

Table 17.1. Data storage pros and cons

TechniqueProsCons
ArchivingAllows ordered relationships (arrays, not sets). Easy to deal with versioning.Reads all the objects in (no faulting). No incremental updates.
Web ServiceMakes it easy to share data with other devices and applications.Requires a server and a connection to the internet.
Core DataLazy fetches by default. Incremental updates.Versioning is awkward (but can certainly be done using an NSModelMapping). No real ordered relationships (at the time this is being written). ...

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