>it's not built into the HTTP request process, even though async HTTP is what you want... basically always
In the Android world that simply isn't the case, and thread-oriented (as opposed to evented) development is the most common strategy, which is why the calls are synchronous -- you toss off a thread to do some web service calls, processing the request and updating the UI.
Regardless, a universal HttpAsyncTask class, with an oncomplete delegate, is a trivial undertaking (there is no need to create one for every unique call). Should there be one in the stock library? Maybe. The lack of one by default is indicative of the fundamentally different general approaches however. Not better or worse, just different.
In the Android world that simply isn't the case, and thread-oriented (as opposed to evented) development is the most common strategy, which is why the calls are synchronous -- you toss off a thread to do some web service calls, processing the request and updating the UI.
Regardless, a universal HttpAsyncTask class, with an oncomplete delegate, is a trivial undertaking (there is no need to create one for every unique call). Should there be one in the stock library? Maybe. The lack of one by default is indicative of the fundamentally different general approaches however. Not better or worse, just different.