title: Easiest way to detect Internet connection on iOS?
body: <p>I know this question will appear to be a dupe of many others, however, I don't feel the simple case is well explained here. Coming from an Android and BlackBerry background, making requests through <code>HTTPUrlConnection</code> instantly fail if there is no connection available. This seems like completely sane behavior, and I was surprised to find <code>NSURLConnection</code> in iOS did not emulate it.</p>
  
  <p>I understand that Apple (and others who have extended it) provide a <code>Reachability</code> class to assist with determining the network state. I was happy to first see this and fully expected to see something like <code>bool isNetworkAvailable()</code>, but instead to my surprise I found a complex system requiring notification registrations and callbacks, and a bunch of seemingly unnecessary details. There must be a better way.</p>
  
  <p>My app already gracefully handles connection failures, including no connectivity. The user is notified of the failure, and the app moves on.</p>
  
  <p>Thus my requirements are simple: Single, synchronous function I can call before all HTTP requests to determine if I should bother actually sending the request or not. Ideally it requires no set up and just returns a boolean.</p>
  
  <p>Is this really not possible on iOS?</p>