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Good! For those unfamiliar with Android, it has a system where you send off a named Intent (I don't know the real names off hand so lets say Intent.PHONE_CALL)
by Navarr 11y ago
Good!
For those unfamiliar with Android, it has a system where you send off a named Intent (I don't know the real names off hand so lets say Intent.PHONE_CALL) and another app handles it.
You might have several apps that can handle such an intent, or you have a default one - and the intent triggers that app to open and depending on various things an action to take place.
As Ballista states, they're looking at editing documents etc.
The one place where this might be creating functionality that already exists is URIs. For example, mailto:someone@somewhere.tld. Although URI's are supposed to simply indicate a resource and not really act as a full blown intent system.
Either way, things such as this bring the web closer and closer to being able to do the sort of things we "just expect" from native apps. It should be worthwhile to watch.
- bsimpson 11y agoIntents are one of the things I've always loved about Android. I set Hangouts as my default application for phone calls and spent the summer traveling with data SIM cards in the countries I lingered in. I was able to make calls anywhere in the world for about 1MB per minute. It worked well enough abroad that I signed up for T-Mobile's $30/5GB plan when I came back to the US. All my phone calls are routed over my data plan, and none of the apps on my phone need to know that to keep working correctly. I can open Yelp and tap Call in a restaurant listing to make a VoIP call in Hangouts just as easily as someone on a traditional plan can with the Phone app.