Create a UIImage with a URL in iOS

This is a three step process. First you will create an NSURL object to hold the URL we are attempting to access. We will supply this URL to the NSData class method, +dataWithContentsOfURL: to obtain the image over the network as raw data, then use the +imageWithData: class method on UIImage to convert the data into an image.

NSURL *imageURL = [NSURL URLWithString:@"http://example.com/demo.jpg"];
NSData *imageData = [NSData dataWithContentsOfURL:imageURL];
UIImage *image = [UIImage imageWithData:imageData];

Please note that +dataWithContentsOfURL: executes a synchronous network request. If you run this on the main thread, it will block the UI until the image data is received from the network. Best practice is to run any network code on a background thread. If you’re targeting OS 4.0+ you could do something like this…

NSURL *imageURL = [NSURL URLWithString:@"http://example.com/demo.jpg"];

dispatch_async(dispatch_get_global_queue(DISPATCH_QUEUE_PRIORITY_BACKGROUND, 0), ^{
    NSData *imageData = [NSData dataWithContentsOfURL:imageURL];

    dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^{
        // Update the UI
        self.imageView.image = [UIImage imageWithData:imageData];
    });
});