[myko]

AndroidQuery seems to lock the UI thread a bit at times. If you're just looking for a nice library to make net requests/load images I'd try Ion: https://github.com/koush/ion

Some other good libraries to check out are Volley, OkHttp, and Picasso. The latter 2 are maintained by Square (same folks who maintain ActionBar Sherlock) and they give great support in their G+ community: https://plus.google.com/communities/109244258569782858265

[jaymzcampbell]

I hadn't heard of Ion, it looks very nice; I'm going to check the others out too. I had a hard time finding something similar for iOS which is a shame - though maybe my Google-Fu is failing me.

[myko]

AFNetworking is pretty spectacular on iOS. And RestKit (which uses AFNetworking) is nearly as nice as using Ion+Gson (steeper learning curve though, but great CoreData integration if you're into that).

[jaymzcampbell]

Many thanks for the pointers