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What iOS Can Learn from Unix

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Re: What iOS Can Learn from Unix

#41

Post by rcoh »

RyanZAG wrote: post #39

From the footnotes: > Android has intents which are a big step in the right direction. With a few tweaks to user experience they could solve this problem on the platform. What tweaks would 'solve this problem'? As far as I can tell, Android intents work flawlessly for transferring content between apps. I can click an attachment on an email, open it in an editor, make changes, and then share that file back on a social…

An Android phone is my primary device. A few key issues for me:

1. No app discovery -- I want to find out about apps that can work with my content.

2. Action curation -- I want to see the actions that other people think are most useful when dealing with my content.

3. No "Return" actions -- eg. The context knowledge necessary to reply to the same message, or overwrite an existing file.

4. Cross device and cross OS: If this is done right, there's no reason for the action to be bound to just one device or even one person.

Re: What iOS Can Learn from Unix

#42

Post by krschultz »

rcoh wrote: post #11
fournm wrote: post #9

From a user perspective, intents are more useful and cover almost everything they're talking about. Most people really don't want to think about the how, they just want to share something to Facebook somehow. Having a standard way to just hook the Facebook app for it is what they really need. It is a shame that we can't get more app functionality sharing in place, but really I don't know if we necessarily want to bri…

Intents are useful, but could be better. A standard way to hook into the Facebook app is fine for Facebook but what about when the space is more fragmented? Should app authors have to integrate with every document viewer or Mail App?

You don't have to tie into any particular document viewer at all, in fact the default behavior is exceedingly simple. Call an ACTION_VIEW intent, provide the file argument, and the OS finds the right viewer that is already installed. The app I write doesn't have to know about the difference between .dxf and .xlsx at all, as long as the user has the right viewers. I can't honestly imagine an easier API than that.

In my app, I went one step further and when the user doesn't have an app installed for the given file type, I recommend one, but that isn't a requirement. I keep track of what percentage of view file requests are fulfilled by an already installed app, and it is generally over 95%.

I think you guys should better understand Intents before you trash them (and actually try to replicate them on iOS). Why was the use of Intents so minimal in the Filepicker.io Android library? I replaced that library with a intents and have a much more robust application.

Re: What iOS Can Learn from Unix

#43

Post by alanctgardner2 »

gwu78 wrote: post #30

How about we produce an enclosure that looks about as good as an iPhone or iPad (as some are already doing; hello Samsung). Inside we put cheap electronics, but with no barriers to what software can be run (hello Apple) and no barriers to inspecting each and every line of software code that will be running on our device that we own (hello, Apple). Finally, we install our own open source OS (say, UNIX). That UNIX migh…

There is no barrier to what software will run on your nexus device. For example, I could put android, or Ubuntu on my Nexus 4. Doesn't that meet all your requirements? The hardware is even sold near cost, by a well-known manufacturer.

Re: What iOS Can Learn from Unix

#44

Post by MrScruff »

residualmind wrote: post #19

This is why I'm still not able to wrap my head around some developers' fascination or love for iOS. Or actually apple at all, since the Apple ][ tbh. Especially when it is becoming more clear that they target the "consumer" range. Unless it's only for profit. But love? Off topic, sorry. Android intents.

I think you're conflating being a software developer and being a power user.

Re: What iOS Can Learn from Unix

#45

Post by RyanZAG »

rcoh wrote: post #41
RyanZAG wrote: post #39

From the footnotes: > Android has intents which are a big step in the right direction. With a few tweaks to user experience they could solve this problem on the platform. What tweaks would 'solve this problem'? As far as I can tell, Android intents work flawlessly for transferring content between apps. I can click an attachment on an email, open it in an editor, make changes, and then share that file back on a social…

An Android phone is my primary device. A few key issues for me: 1. No app discovery -- I want to find out about apps that can work with my content. 2. Action curation -- I want to see the actions that other people think are most useful when dealing with my content. 3. No "Return" actions -- eg. The context knowledge necessary to reply to the same message, or overwrite an existing file. 4. Cross device and cross OS: I…

1. When you initiate any action that would use an intent in Android, you get that selection popup window that let's you choose any app that can handle that intent. So I think there is already app discovery? Unless you mean something like Play Store integration into Android itself, in which you can view applications on Google Play that can handle that intent. That is pretty interesting and should be do-able even without Google's intervention with just a database of Google Play apps... I looked around but didn't find anything. Might be a cool project to try.

2. Each app defines what intents it can handle, so I don't think curation is necessary. The app select popup window is already curating that for you?

3. This context knowledge is provided inside every intent. Not all apps choose to use it, though. In some cases I'd guess the sandbox would get in the way as well. I'm not sure how much practical value this would have anyway? Can you explain it a bit more?

4. There is nothing stopping Apple from adopting Android intents, but obviously they won't. This is a 'pie in the sky' suggestion that won't happen for the same reason there is more than one flavour of Linux. It's like asking why you can't pipe results from your unix system to a Windows system - it just won't happen for political reasons.

Re: What iOS Can Learn from Unix

#46

Post by ekr »

All the downfalls mentioned in the article (and many others) are direct consequences of non-free software. Apparently the author is oblivious to this fact, and the nature of free software.

Re: What iOS Can Learn from Unix

#47

Post by jordanthoms »

jerf wrote: post #27
fournm wrote: post #9

From a user perspective, intents are more useful and cover almost everything they're talking about. Most people really don't want to think about the how, they just want to share something to Facebook somehow. Having a standard way to just hook the Facebook app for it is what they really need. It is a shame that we can't get more app functionality sharing in place, but really I don't know if we necessarily want to bri…

I am not an Android developer. Is it possible for an application to create a new Intent, and then have another application use it, or can they only be blessed by Google?

Yes, it's possible. In fact, it's the whole idea. There is also content providers, which allows an app to give another app access to it's data. In fact, intents are how an app launches a new screen when you press a button etc - by sending an intent to the system telling it to launch a new activity.

Some of the UX around intents isn't great, but the core concept and implementation is very clever and doesn't get the attention and respect it deserves. Much like many aspects of Android.

Re: What iOS Can Learn from Unix

#49

Post by jordanthoms »

RyanZAG wrote: post #45
rcoh wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An Android phone is my primary device. A few key issues for me: 1. No app discovery -- I want to find out about apps that can work with my content. 2. Action curation -- I want to see the actions that other people think are most useful when dealing with my content. 3. No "Return" actions -- eg. The context knowledge necessary to reply to the same message, or overwrite an existing file. 4. Cross device and cross OS: I…

1. When you initiate any action that would use an intent in Android, you get that selection popup window that let's you choose any app that can handle that intent. So I think there is already app discovery? Unless you mean something like Play Store integration into Android itself, in which you can view applications on Google Play that can handle that intent. That is pretty interesting and should be do-able even witho…

A few issues I have with android intents (Overall I love them):

- They are sometimes vague, and apps often advertise support for many intents they can't actually handle sanely. Trying to setup an email intent which actually only shows email clients is an example of this. The UX of showing a list of many apps which are not really good choices is pretty bad. I think the blame for this is largely on the apps themselves for not being more specific in their intent filters, but it still reflects badly on the platform.

- It loses the default choices on a regular basis. Updating an app which supports that intent and/or installing a new one seems to invalidate the default choice, which is really annoying. Especially in cases where you have e.g. installed a 3rd party browser, and now every time you click a link you have to choose which one to use.

- Once you have selected a default, you can't choose to use another one without digging through settings and clearing them for the app which has the default action set. Something like the right click and open with which we have on desktop operating systems would be great.

Re: What iOS Can Learn from Unix

#50

Post by jordanthoms »

alanctgardner2 wrote: post #43
gwu78 wrote: post #30

How about we produce an enclosure that looks about as good as an iPhone or iPad (as some are already doing; hello Samsung). Inside we put cheap electronics, but with no barriers to what software can be run (hello Apple) and no barriers to inspecting each and every line of software code that will be running on our device that we own (hello, Apple). Finally, we install our own open source OS (say, UNIX). That UNIX migh…

There is no barrier to what software will run on your nexus device. For example, I could put android, or Ubuntu on my Nexus 4. Doesn't that meet all your requirements? The hardware is even sold near cost, by a well-known manufacturer.

Yeah - the only restriction on a Nexus is that if/when you unlock it, you must wipe the data on the phone - which is for completely legitimate security reasons.
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