How is the API Limit Calculated?

[Samuel]

I'm fairly new to the GoodReads API and am curious if the API Limit is given on a per device or per developer key limit. I am working on a mobile app and would like to avoid adding my own server in between the two to avoid issues with the terms. Is this necessary or do I need to only limit my use of the API on a per device basis?

[Michael]

Per developer key. For your use case you should avoid creating a intermediate server.

Can you explain what your app does?

[Samuel]

Can you explain what your app does?"

I'm writing (another) Windows Phone app. The two current ones are either too complex or buggy to be useful so the community asked me to look into making one for them. It will let you browse books, authors and other basic tasks.

My concern is that if I have 10 concurrent users that means each user can only take 1 API touching action every 10 seconds. There also is not a way to limit this reasonably since no app will have insight into the others that are running.

At this point I'm still evaluating what the best way to approach this is and if I can work around it.

[Michael]

As long as each installed application is generating only one request per second, you're fine as long as your app is only being used by real live humans.

The limits are really more focused on non client apps, we want to make sure we can scale to handle all incoming traffic and not put any of our user's experience at risk.

If we see a lot of unusual traffic coming from your application ID we'll work with you to come up with a solution, but for this use case, you shouldn't have an intermediate server.

Hope this helps,
-Michael