Searching for users using Parse

Question

What would be the better approach to let a user search for other users who use the app (using Parse.com as the backend) :

1. Import all the the data in the _User table then filter t in the app when using the UISearchBar

2. Querying parse for the search term and loading the results to the tableview

Answer 1

There is no "right" answer. It depends entirely on how you define "better."

Option 1 likely produces superficially the best user experience, in the sense that filtering a list on the fly looks a lot more responsive. But you have to schedule downloading the user list for when the user isn't already trying to search.

Option 2 is likely more efficient. Less bandwidth, less storage. But the user had to be online to search and you probably can't do a "real time" filter unless you're on a fast network.

There may be other factors also. I didn't want to expose a list of users, for example, so I went for option 2.