AngularJS : Initialize service with asynchronous data

Have you had a look at $routeProvider.when('/path',{ resolve:{...}? It can make the promise approach a bit cleaner:

Expose a promise in your service:

app.service('MyService', function($http) {
    var myData = null;

    var promise = $http.get('data.json').success(function (data) {
      myData = data;
    });

    return {
      promise:promise,
      setData: function (data) {
          myData = data;
      },
      doStuff: function () {
          return myData;//.getSomeData();
      }
    };
});

Add resolve to your route config:

app.config(function($routeProvider){
  $routeProvider
    .when("https://stackoverflow.com/",{controller:'MainCtrl',
    template:'<div>From MyService:<pre>{{data | json}}</pre></div>',
    resolve:{
      'MyServiceData':function(MyService){
        // MyServiceData will also be injectable in your controller, if you don't want this you could create a new promise with the $q service
        return MyService.promise;
      }
    }})
  }):

Your controller won’t get instantiated before all dependencies are resolved:

app.controller('MainCtrl', function($scope,MyService) {
  console.log('Promise is now resolved: '+MyService.doStuff().data)
  $scope.data = MyService.doStuff();
});

I’ve made an example at plnkr: http://plnkr.co/edit/GKg21XH0RwCMEQGUdZKH?p=preview