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As an outsider looking in - it appears app developers have decided that operating system integration is not desirable. I have heard various reasons for this ra
by cjhanks 9y ago
As an outsider looking in - it appears app developers have decided that operating system integration is not desirable. I have heard various reasons for this ranging from; "We can do it better" to "Allowing users to escape your app significantly reduces interaction time".
As a consequence, major app developers seem to be shipping a lot of things which used to be integration points. Half of Android apps seem to ship their own browsers now.
These are the functionalities which used to be operating system integration points which I have seen largely replaced by applications (even if they are designed to look identical):
- Web browsing
- Camera interfacing / image processing
- Type/Swipe/text input
- Dictionaries / spellcheck
On top of that, most large app developers seem to be shipping their own run-time environments that appear to be designed to bridge cross-compatibility gaps across operating systems and operating system versions. Until some of those targets are truly end-of-life'd the number of graceful feature fall-backs and work-arounds will likely keep growing.
- valuearb 9y agoI don't see this on iOS, for example web browsing is required to be done with a UIWebview from iOS.
- kitsunesoba 9y agoOr better, SFSarfariViewController, which ensures user privacy by being sandboxed off from the app, supports content blockers, and provides all the standard system sharing options instead of trying to pigeonhole users into a subset of highly tracked "desirable" sharing options. I personally make a point to avoid apps that opt to use a UIWebView over an SFSafariViewController. The reasons for doing so are rarely in my best interest as a user.
- valuearb 9y agoRight. My point was you have to use a iOS class for web browsing to pass store review.
- Larrikin 9y agoI think that's exactly what he is describing. Line and Messenger now open all links in a crappy in app web view instead of opening the browser app like they used to.