AFNetworking + Google Places API web service + Parse SDK with multiple baseURL

Question

I working on a project where I will use these services combined:

1. AFNetworking
2. Google Places API web service
3. Parse

Trying to follow the best practices mentioned in the AFNetworking Docs :

Developers targeting iOS 7 or Mac OS X 10.9 or later that deal extensively with a web service are encouraged to subclass AFHTTPSessionManager, providing a class method that returns a shared singleton object on which authentication and other configuration can be shared across the application.

So, I have created a singleton networking manager like :

MyAppAPI.h

#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>
#import "AFHTTPSessionManager.h"
#import "AFNetworking.h"

@interface MyAppAPI : AFHTTPSessionManager

+(MyAppAPI *)sharedInstance;

@end

MyAppAPI.m

#import "MyAppAPI.h"
@implementation MyAppAPI

+(MyAppAPI*)sharedInstance
{
    static MyAppAPI* sharedInstance = nil;
    static dispatch_once_t onceToken;
    dispatch_once(&onceToken, ^{
       sharedInstance = [[MyAppAPI alloc] initWithBaseURL:[NSURL URLWithString:kROOT_URL]];
    });
    return sharedInstance;
}
@end

where kROOT_URL is "https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/place/nearbysearch"

Usage:

  NSDictionary *params = @{@"some_param":@"some_value" };

   [[MyAppAPI sharedInstance] GET: @"/json"
                            parameters:params
                               success:^(NSURLSessionDataTask *task, id responseObject){


     } failure:^(NSURLSessionDataTask *task, NSError *error)
     {

     }];

Now, it works only for Google Places API we service calls.

1. What if I want to use another web service, how to change the baseURL, if it's not possible what is the best practice to deal with this situation ?
2. How to use the manager to work with Parse ? any good practice.

I need best practices advises to combine Parse, AFNetworking and Google Places API web service.

Already found : changing AFNetworking baseURL but not helping

Answer 1

Doing what you're doing is perfectly fine. The important idea is that the singleton being suggested by that doc is a singleton per service. A little adjustment in the choice of singleton names might help clarify, so instead of...

// MyAppAPI.h
@interface MyAppAPI : AFHTTPSessionManager

consider that what you've written so far should be called...

// GooglePlacesAPI.h
@interface GooglePlacesAPI : AFHTTPSessionManager

...and include a method like...

- (void)nearbySearch:(NSString *)value
             success:(void (^)(NSURLSessionDataTask *, id))success 
             failure:(void (^)(NSURLSessionDataTask *, NSError *))failure {

    NSDictionary *params = @{@"some_param":value };
    [self GET: @"/json" parameters:params success:success failure:failure];
}

A customer of this class would then say...

[GooglePlacesAPI nearbySearch:@"some value" success:^(NSURLSessionDataTask *task, id responseObject) {
    // handle success
} failure:^(NSURLSessionDataTask *task, NSError *error) {
    // handle failure
}];

Parse gives you the option to use a REST API, and with that you could follow the same pattern to create a singleton for Parse...

// ParseAPI.h
@interface ParseAPI : AFHTTPSessionManager

It's worth mentioning that Parse also provides a full iOS SDK which wraps the network code in a manner similar to AFNetworking, so this approach wouldn't be necessary if you choose the SDK instead of the REST API.