20 ms·

> all enterprise application UI are actually web UI Yes, and so are most consumer apps, and "moving state" to another device is simply a question of IM'ing a l

> all enterprise application UI are actually web UI Yes, and so are most consumer apps, and "moving state" to another device is simply a question of IM'ing a link. Sure, the UI in the movie looks way cooler, but it's a movie.

acdha 10y ago
That works for the barely double-digit percentage of apps which store all necessary state in the URL. In most cases, it's more like share a link, reauthenticate, get an unhelpful error page, use the navigation to get back to where you were, learn that the work you did first wasn't saved at all or that their eventual consistency means "same day" (e.g. iCloud), and hopefully they don't have some halfhearted attempt at locking which will prevent you from continuing. I suspect that if this feature ever arrives it'll be streaming rendered video like CarPlay/etc. because that's the only thing the device vendor can count on. The point isn't that this is uncharted waters technically but that too many companies decided a good user experience isn't compatible with their desired profit margins. In some cases like security and bug fixes that might change due to regulation but that's far from certain and it's really hard to imagine that extending to broad interoperability.
- mseebach 10y ago
  Yes, for an app to successfully transfer state, it needs to be able to transfer state, that's a tautology. But for webapps that want to be able to transfer state, the mechanism is the URL, and for those app, this works perfectly and unceremoniously well today.
  - acdha 10y ago
    The point I was responding to was your assertion that this was already true of most enterprise and consumer webapps: > > all enterprise application UI are actually web UI > Yes, and so are most consumer apps, and "moving state" to another device is simply a question of IM'ing a link. That's a great aspirational goal but it's simply not something which most people can assume will work – I still routinely find apps from major companies where you can't even use the back button within the same session!

acdha 10y ago

That works for the barely double-digit percentage of apps which store all necessary state in the URL. In most cases, it's more like share a link, reauthenticate, get an unhelpful error page, use the navigation to get back to where you were, learn that the work you did first wasn't saved at all or that their eventual consistency means "same day" (e.g. iCloud), and hopefully they don't have some halfhearted attempt at locking which will prevent you from continuing. I suspect that if this feature ever arrives it'll be streaming rendered video like CarPlay/etc. because that's the only thing the device vendor can count on. The point isn't that this is uncharted waters technically but that too many companies decided a good user experience isn't compatible with their desired profit margins. In some cases like security and bug fixes that might change due to regulation but that's far from certain and it's really hard to imagine that extending to broad interoperability.

mseebach 10y ago
Yes, for an app to successfully transfer state, it needs to be able to transfer state, that's a tautology. But for webapps that want to be able to transfer state, the mechanism is the URL, and for those app, this works perfectly and unceremoniously well today.
- acdha 10y ago
  The point I was responding to was your assertion that this was already true of most enterprise and consumer webapps: > > all enterprise application UI are actually web UI > Yes, and so are most consumer apps, and "moving state" to another device is simply a question of IM'ing a link. That's a great aspirational goal but it's simply not something which most people can assume will work – I still routinely find apps from major companies where you can't even use the back button within the same session!