long polling in objective-C

This is exactly the sort of use-case that NSURLConnection sendSynchronousRequest is perfect for:

- (void) longPoll {
    //create an autorelease pool for the thread
    NSAutoreleasePool* pool = [[NSAutoreleasePool alloc] init];

    //compose the request
    NSError* error = nil;
    NSURLResponse* response = nil;
    NSURL* requestUrl = [NSURL URLWithString:@"http://www.mysite.com/pollUrl"];
    NSURLRequest* request = [NSURLRequest requestWithURL:requestUrl];

    //send the request (will block until a response comes back)
    NSData* responseData = [NSURLConnection sendSynchronousRequest:request
                            returningResponse:&response error:&error];

    //pass the response on to the handler (can also check for errors here, if you want)
    [self performSelectorOnMainThread:@selector(dataReceived:) 
          withObject:responseData waitUntilDone:YES];

    //clear the pool 
    [pool drain];

    //send the next poll request
    [self performSelectorInBackground:@selector(longPoll) withObject: nil];
}

- (void) startPoll {
    //not covered in this example:  stopping the poll or ensuring that only 1 poll is active at any given time
    [self performSelectorInBackground:@selector(longPoll) withObject: nil];
}

- (void) dataReceived: (NSData*) theData {
    //process the response here
}

Alternately, you could use async I/O and delegate callbacks to accomplish the same thing, but that would really be kind of silly in this case.