I am developing an application that processes a video file stored on a server. I use URLSessionDataTask with a delegate handler to download the file. It is not necessary to download the entire file at once. Instead, I can load small chunks of the file as needed. This approach helps minimize memory consumption. I am trying to design a network layer that supports this behavior. Ideally, I would like to have an interface similar to: func readMoreData(length: Int) async throws -> Data Problems I Encountered: It seems that URLSessionDataTask does not allow controlling how many bytes will be downloaded. It always downloads the entire request. If I call suspend on URLSessionDataTask, the network activity does not stop, and the file keeps downloading. If I upgrade the dataTask to a StreamTask, the file still downloads, though reading bytes can be done through the StreamTask API. I would prefer behavior similar to AsyncHTTPClient (a Swift Server library) or Network Framework. These frameworks allow controlling the number of bytes downloaded at a time. Unfortunately, they do not fit the specific requirements of my project. Am I correct in understanding that controlling the download process is not possible with URLSessionDataTask? As a possible solution, I am considering using HTTP Range Requests, though this would increase the number of additional server requests, which I would like to avoid.

I’m implementing a custom playback pipeline using AVSampleBufferAudioRenderer together with AVSampleBufferRenderSynchronizer. hasSufficientMediaDataForReliablePlaybackStart appears to be the intended signal for determining when enough media has been queued to start playback. For local playback, this works well in practice — the property becomes true after a reasonable amount of media is enqueued. However, when the output route is AirPlay, using this property becomes difficult: AirPlay requires significantly more buffered media before the renderer reports sufficient data. The required preroll amount is much larger than for local playback. For short assets, it is possible to enqueue the entire audio track and still never observe hasSufficientMediaDataForReliablePlaybackStart == true. In that situation there is no more media data to enqueue, but the renderer still reports that playback is not ready. Given this behavior, what is the recommended way to determine playback readiness when using AVSampleBufferAudioRenderer with AirPlay?