You forgot to add spinner on table view. Your code should look as follows:
-(void)viewDidAppear:(BOOL)animated{
[super viewDidAppear:animated];
spinner = [[UIActivityIndicatorView alloc] initWithActivityIndicatorStyle:UIActivityIndicatorViewStyleGray];
spiner.center = //set some center
[self.tableView addSubview: spinner];
[self.tableView bringSubviewToFront:spinner];
spinner.hidesWhenStopped = YES;
spinner.hidden = NO;
[spinner startAnimating];
stateGauges = [[GaugeList alloc] initWithStateIdentifier:stateIdentifier andType:nil];
[self.tableView reloadData];
[spinner stopAnimating];
}
Also you send requests to a web service in main thread. This is bad practice. I would suggest something like following:
-(void)viewDidAppear:(BOOL)animated{
[super viewDidAppear:animated];
spinner = [[UIActivityIndicatorView alloc] initWithActivityIndicatorStyle:UIActivityIndicatorViewStyleGray];
spiner.center = //set some center
[self.tableView addSubview: spinner];
[self.tableView bringSubviewToFront:spinner];
spinner.hidesWhenStopped = YES;
spinner.hidden = NO;
[spinner startAnimating];
dispatch_async(dispatch_get_global_queue(DISPATCH_QUEUE_PRIORITY_HIGH, 0), ^{
stateGauges = [[GaugeList alloc] initWithStateIdentifier:stateIdentifier andType:nil];
dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^{
[self.tableView reloadData];
[spinner stopAnimating];
});
});
}