I.e. don't wait for confirmation from the server that the action was successful, before you indicate success the user. This can dramatically boost perceived performance in an app, mobile or otherwise.
However, even if this gain is too tempting to resist for a startup struggling to gain traction, I think it deserves to be mentioned that it's a slightly dishonest thing to do. For example I've been burned a few times after closing the app and going several hours or days, only to learn that my photo never went live. It can be infuriating. For less trivial apps, it can only be worse.
The app can't, because it's been closed. And the server can't e-mail me with an error or anything, because it might never have even known about the action.
At least on webpages, the page can intercept the close action with a modal dialog, then fires when you try to quit the browser or close the tab, warning that you have unsaved data. Mobile apps have no such last-case warning mechanism.
Because of this, I agree that lying to your users about successfully completed actions, on mobile, is bad advice. You're abusing users' trust, and once they discover that (and remember just how unreliable mobile connections are, so they're bound to discover it sooner or later!), don't be surprised if they don't come back.
https://speakerdeck.com/mikeyk/secrets-to-lightning-fast-mob...
