diff --git a/ios/MBXViewController.mm b/ios/MBXViewController.mm
index 8d734459c..06f60b314 100644
--- a/ios/MBXViewController.mm
+++ b/ios/MBXViewController.mm
@@ -377,7 +377,6 @@ class MBXMapView
 
 MBXMapView *mapView;
 CADisplayLink *displayLink;
-NSOperationQueue *queue;
 
 namespace llmr
 {
@@ -390,20 +389,13 @@ namespace llmr
 
         void request_http(std::string url, std::function<void(Response&)> background_function, std::function<void()> foreground_callback)
         {
-            [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] postNotificationName:MBXUpdateActivityNotification object:nil userInfo:[NSDictionary dictionaryWithObject:@1 forKey:@"count"]];
-
-            if (!queue)
-                queue = [NSOperationQueue new];
-
-            NSMutableURLRequest *urlRequest = [NSMutableURLRequest requestWithURL:[NSURL URLWithString:@(url.c_str())]];
-
-            [NSURLConnection sendAsynchronousRequest:urlRequest
-                                               queue:queue
-                                   completionHandler:^(NSURLResponse *response, NSData *data, NSError *error)
+            NSURLSessionDataTask *task = [[NSURLSession sharedSession] dataTaskWithURL:[NSURL URLWithString:@(url.c_str())] completionHandler:^(NSData *data, NSURLResponse *response, NSError *error)
             {
+                [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] postNotificationName:MBXUpdateActivityNotification object:nil userInfo:[NSDictionary dictionaryWithObject:@(-1) forKey:@"count"]];
+
                 Response res;
 
-                if (error == nil)
+                if ( ! error)
                 {
                     res.code = [(NSHTTPURLResponse *)response statusCode];
                     res.body = { (const char *)[data bytes], [data length] };
@@ -413,12 +405,15 @@ namespace llmr
 
                 dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^(void)
                 {
-                   foreground_callback();
-                });
+                    foreground_callback();
 
-                [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] postNotificationName:MBXUpdateActivityNotification object:nil userInfo:[NSDictionary dictionaryWithObject:@(-1) forKey:@"count"]];
-                [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] postNotificationName:MBXNeedsRenderNotification object:nil];
+                    [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] postNotificationName:MBXNeedsRenderNotification object:nil];
+                });
             }];
+
+            [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] postNotificationName:MBXUpdateActivityNotification object:nil userInfo:[NSDictionary dictionaryWithObject:@1 forKey:@"count"]];
+
+            [task resume];
         }
 
         double time()
diff --git a/ios/llmr-app.gyp b/ios/llmr-app.gyp
index b9cec1ca6..d29039726 100644
--- a/ios/llmr-app.gyp
+++ b/ios/llmr-app.gyp
@@ -37,7 +37,7 @@
           'INFOPLIST_FILE': 'Info.plist',
           'CLANG_CXX_LIBRARY': 'libc++',
           'CLANG_CXX_LANGUAGE_STANDARD':'c++11',
-          'IPHONEOS_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET':'6.0',
+          'IPHONEOS_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET':'7.0',
           'TARGETED_DEVICE_FAMILY': '1,2',
           'GCC_VERSION': 'com.apple.compilers.llvm.clang.1_0',
           'CLANG_ENABLE_OBJC_ARC': 'YES'
diff --git a/llmr.gyp b/llmr.gyp
index bd94746fa..836a4d098 100644
--- a/llmr.gyp
+++ b/llmr.gyp
@@ -140,7 +140,7 @@
         'ARCHS': [ "armv7", "armv7s", "arm64", "i386" ],
         'TARGETED_DEVICE_FAMILY': '1,2',
         'CODE_SIGN_IDENTITY': 'iPhone Developer',
-        'IPHONEOS_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET': '5.0',
+        'IPHONEOS_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET': '7.0',
         'PUBLIC_HEADERS_FOLDER_PATH': 'include',
         'GCC_INPUT_FILETYPE':'sourcecode.cpp.cpp',
         'OTHER_CPLUSPLUSFLAGS':[