What lo the status of user privacy and security in such apps? The user I am guessing should have no such expectations.
i was also wondering about that (privacy); "use our app to do everything"...
WeChat's App Revolution
91–100 of 104 posts
Re: WeChat's App Revolution
#92this month, I have developed and published a so-called 'mini app' in wechat. It is more like instant app from android 2017 year with web technology, but tencent restricted a lot of functions so you cannot use the standard web technology and i believe it is for security reason and $$$.
In my options, i dont think it is an app revolution but it is more like a trending for this industry, like facebook instant game or web app.
Re: WeChat's App Revolution
#93WeChat's "App Revolution" is by no means a technical revolution, as several other commenters have pointed out. There's nothing new with embedding a web browser, nor with SSO, or integrated payments. The revolution is the fact that this is an app with an install base approaching one billion users (846M monthly active users as of Q3'16). Anything they do is potentially revolutionary by virtue of sheer scale. They are a…
whatsapp still ain't got an api tho
A Whatsapp server browses links you paste into chat, searches for any meta tags and opengraph information it can find and shows a picture/title in chat if it can. That's as close as it got to an API
Re: WeChat's App Revolution
#94This is praising WeChat for having a built-in web browser that supports single sign-on and credit card autofill.
I would be more impressed if they could deploy actual activities into their app and not browser based solutions.
Re: WeChat's App Revolution
#95Seems really similar to what Telegram has been trying to do for a while now. First with basic bots, then bots using custom keyboards and stickers, then with inline bots, and now with the game API (which basically allows you to package arbitrary HTML/JS/CSS into a bot message).
You are saying that the guy who cloned Facebook for Russian market (vk.com) is now building WeChat for Russia?
It's not oriented on the Russian market at all. Many of us (I'm Russian too) complains about Telegram not having Russian language by default. (but I don't really care about it that much because I know English very well). More over, Pavel Durov said that he won't do any business in Russia because if you don't want to cooperate with their government, you may lost your business. He lost his vk.com because of that.
Re: WeChat's App Revolution
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe the US companies and government should have thought about that before making that behavior normal in the digital world.
In contrast to your sarcastic snark the normal behavior in the west is secure end-to-end encryption (iMessage, Whatsapp).
I don't see how a slight improvement primarily in the last two years after Snowden is "normal behavior"? WhatsApp ran without end-to-end encryption for six years, so did Gmail without SSL as the default. The industry and government has had two decades to impose "western values" through precedent, standards or legislation. Instead they chose short-term profits and intelligence operations. Users have few rights and even lower expectations.
Re: WeChat's App Revolution
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that privacy is unsustainable. I don't think we should strive to protect it. We should work toward enabling people to live fully transparent lives. When I say "app", I mean all software including websites. The main problem to tackle is not a technical one, but a design one. It's with the UX fragmentation that I have a problem. A native mega-app that contains mini-apps with different UX is not better than what…
> We should work toward enabling people to live fully transparent lives. Undesirable for most, harmful for many, and lethal for some. I live in a fairly tolerant society as far as Earth standards go, but some things I will only share with a select few. Should my medical records be open to anyone? My banking statements? My sexual preferences and fantasies? That's absurd. It would ostracise a lot of people even in a no…
> Undesirable for most, harmful for many, and lethal for some.
As I said, there is work to do before we can go fully transparent. It will ultimately be harmful only to those who deserve it.
> Should my medical records be open to anyone? My banking statements? My sexual preferences and fantasies? That's absurd.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Why do you assume that's absurd? Why do you insist on keeping secrets? The world would be a lot better if all those things were communicated publicly.
> In some less enlightened jurisdictions some of these will get you executed or lynched (ask any gay person in a Muslim country, or anyone critical of their government in a repressive regime).
That's a problem that will only get worse as privacy is maintained. Privacy skews our perception of reality and makes people/government think that some ideas/flaws/actions/crimes are rare when the reality is that most people are able to conceal them. Those who get caught suffer from exaggerated punishment that's only sustained through the ability of others to hide. The democratization of privacy is not the solution to this problem.
> Yet I might want to chat about some topics with like minded individuals (again, assume for the sake of argument that all of it is legal in my jurisdiction) under a pseudonym or anonymity; the internet is a wonderful place where this is possible — partly because I'm not doing everything through one megacorp's 'app'. I'd like to keep it that way.
Anonymity is overrated. It's only good at restricting details that could otherwise become a distraction, as a way to focus on content rather than form. This can be achieved through other means that don't restrict access to information or make a person believe their reputation is immune to bad actions. Again, the only reason you want privacy and anonymity is because it's the norm, not because it's best.
I have never implied that such an "app" would be owned by a mega corporation. It will be fully open (again, transparent), free and distributed.
> We standardise where necessary for mutual benefit and cooperation (e.g., HTML, CSS, and JavaScript; Unicode; or accessibility standards), and often we will imitate or copy what works (e.g., the 'hamburger menu', or sensible typography) but that doesn't mean every site or service or application should look the same and connect to the same set of identity providers.
These standards, while better than nothing, are mediocre at best. They're also very low-level. I don't want my grandmother to program in HTML/CSS/JS.
> You present a very radical viewpoint, and I applaud you for your fervour, but I suspect you are either very young, not a developer, or you haven't experienced the downside of the monopolistic behaviour of the world's Apples, Googles, and Microsofts yet.
I'm 25. I'm a developer. I fully appreciate the limitations of Google/Apple/Microsoft, hence my request to make something different.
Re: WeChat's App Revolution
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
> We should work toward enabling people to live fully transparent lives. Undesirable for most, harmful for many, and lethal for some. I live in a fairly tolerant society as far as Earth standards go, but some things I will only share with a select few. Should my medical records be open to anyone? My banking statements? My sexual preferences and fantasies? That's absurd. It would ostracise a lot of people even in a no…
> Undesirable for most, harmful for many, and lethal for some. As I said, there is work to do before we can go fully transparent. It will ultimately be harmful only to those who deserve it. > Should my medical records be open to anyone? My banking statements? My sexual preferences and fantasies? That's absurd. Yes. Yes. Yes. Why do you assume that's absurd? Why do you insist on keeping secrets? The world would be a l…
> Yes. Yes. Yes. Why do you assume that's absurd? Why do you insist on keeping secrets? The world would be a lot better if all those things were communicated publicly.
It is not absurd as a thought experiment, merely impossible to implement without sacrificing one of the defining aspects of our (global) culture. I won't rehash the many arguments fore and against the idea of total transparency — I'll leave that to the science fiction writers and activists — but the concept of privacy is so fundamental to our concept of self that I cannot imagine that people in a society without privacy would be happier.
Personal opinion aside, your view is so radical, that the adoption of a technical solution such as the one you propose won't happen until the notion of total transparency gains more adherents. To do so you would have to come up with convincing answers to the (many!) arguments posited against the notion of total transparency; often formulated as the if you've got nothing to hide fallacy — which I believe applies here. We'll be very old or dead by the time society has shifted that far from its current believe in privacy — then you can start working on a technical solution (this may answer your initial question).
Re: WeChat's App Revolution
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
I watched the video. I still don't get it. Why would I want one app and company to own all of that? I don't even want one phone manufacturer/platform to own my messaging - I much prefer platform-agnostic Whatsapp over iPhone-only iMessage. Already the smartphone platform I use can do all of social networking, mobile payments, food, ticket sales, ride-hailing, bill payments, etc on ONE device. I just don't see what th…
>Why would I want one app and company to own all of that? Because one entity can control they way it's all integrated, they can bring UI consistency and convenience by enforcing some degree of feature de-duplication. E.g. Single sign-on, and a shared e-wallet. >Having APIs for apps on a device to talk to each other allows for competition and variety - won't it obviously win out? Nope, there's no guarantee. There are…
I don't actually care which future will be realized, I just want the better experience. I just don't see how a one-company-does-all can possibly win out over a free market of competition between companies and developers on an open platform.
On the other hand, if WeChat eventually opens up its "app" to other developers and companies, then it will effectively become the operating system and platform. At which point (1) this is "isomorphic" our current system and offers exactly zero advantages (we are just changing where we place the label "operating system") (2) it will be competing with iOS and Android, not with other apps (3) they will have to release a phone that runs the WeChat OS
Re: WeChat's App Revolution
#100tl;dr: If the design philosophies for Alexa, IFTTT, Siri, and Google all came together in one beautiful, open platform, I would be so happy. I hate apps so much, and voice assistants offer amazing convenience and better interaction. I don't need the extra fluff with a huge app.
Once Apple opens Siri to a greater extent, we'll have even more flexibility & power. I could delete so many apps if Siri could handle the few, basic functions that I actually need. Currently, SiriKit is limited to particular domains, like messaging, payments, or reservations, so it's not capable of a whole lot [1]. The Alexa Skills Kit [2] is ahead of Siri at this point, only because it's more open to developers.
One day, this is what Siri will do:
Siri takes a photo of my checks, handles my banking logins, and submits the photos for deposit processing. I delete my banking app.
Siri records my voice, sends it to Google Translate, and returns the appropriate translation. Then I delete Google Translate.
With the IntentsUI Framework, apps could include a visual experience, too. There's plenty of room for growth and customization.
Siri even lets you activate Google Now, Alexa, or a different voice assistant that is more intelligent. Sorry Siri, but you just aren't as good :(
Siri would handle security and API stuff. It would store my logins and account information, and then it would appropriately handle my Intents. I could download particular functions and increase the capabilities of Siri, like how iMessages has its own App Store.
One selling point with Firefox OS was the Adaptive App Search, where relevant apps would be available as you needed them. Searching for coffee? A Starbucks web app would appear, and you could use it on the fly, similar to the Progressive Web Apps with Android. In either case, the purpose was to limit installed software and prioritize what was actually needed at the time [3].
But Siri, or Alexa, or any voice assistant will push this further when all of the APIs Just Work™. I don't know how soon this day will come, but I could delete so many apps if Siri could process my data and communicate with 3rd parties.
[1] SiriKit: https://developer.apple.com/sirikit/
[2] Alexa Skills Kit: https://developer.amazon.com/alexa-skills-kit
[3] Firefox Adaptive App Search: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9zwf0VMVDI