A method executed on a first electronic device for accessing an application server on a second electronic device includes receiving a cache manifest for an application, the cache manifest identifying a resource item that can be pre-cached on the first electronic device, pre-caching the resource item as a cached resource item in a cache memory of the first electronic device prior to launching an application client on the first electronic device. The method further includes, upon launching the application client on the first electronic device, retrieving data from the application server, wherein the data includes content and a reference to the resource item, obtaining, from the cache memory, the cached resource item that corresponds to the resource item, and displaying an output based upon the content and the cached resource item.