Offline-first apps should keep cached data when a refresh fails
A common mobile problem occurs when a weak connection causes a refresh to fail and the whole screen turns into an error page, even though the app holds useful cached data. The article argues that content availability and refresh status are separate facts, so a single exclusive Loading, Success, or Error state is too restrictive. It proposes a presentation model that tracks whether a local snapshot exists alongside an independent refresh status, so that a null snapshot and an empty stored list are clearly distinguished. The recommended approach keeps local data during refresh and on failure, commits accepted remote results atomically, and lets the UI observe local storage rather than racing network and database results. Product choices such as showing a last-updated time, serializing overlapping refreshes, and deciding whether a response is a full snapshot, page, or delta are also highlighted.
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