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When the iPhone first allowed apps in an app store I had a conversation with another developer. We brainstormed an idea of an application that would allow you t
by reggieband 7y ago
When the iPhone first allowed apps in an app store I had a conversation with another developer. We brainstormed an idea of an application that would allow you to aggregate all of your conversations with a person. Instead of opening the phone app, the messages app, facebook, twitter, etc. you would instead open the "Joe Smith" app and all of your conversations with that person across any medium would be aggregated in a single place. It is a bit like SoA vs. AoS (Structures of Arrays vs. Array of Structures). By transposing the relationship between app/person to be person/app it could change how we view social media.
What I've found over the following 12 years is that application producers are extremely hostile to anything that would take the user out of their application. It reminds me of early 2000 era websites where external links on some sites were not allowed.
The reason why RSS and similar aggregators do not work has nothing to do with technology. Any technology that allows you to follow the stars of a social media platform outside of that platform (or aggregate across platforms) will face a level of of opposition that is likely to be insurmountable.
- kickscondor 7y agoYou're probably right. But don't forget that people are ultimately stronger than the platforms. Where is Snapchat now that TikTok arrived?
- derivagral 7y agoXMPP, RSS, and similar protocols feel like they died due to this. Technical stuff, sure, but I tend to view the technical reasons more as business justifications for lock-in than "legit" issues. I work in the micromobility vertical, which is facing some of these issues around trips, privacy, companies owning data, and cities wanting open data. Stuff like this [1] is popping up more and more. https://www.citylab.com/perspective/2019/10/transport-trip-planner-app-lyft-citibike-open-mobility-data/599650/ https://www.citylab.com/perspective/2019/10/transport-trip-p...
- GrinningFool 7y ago> Instead of opening the phone app, the messages app, > facebook, twitter, etc. you would instead open the "Joe > Smith" app and all of your conversations with that person > across any medium would be aggregated in a single place BlackBerry hub did this under BBOS10. The android app more-or-less does it as well. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.blackberry.hub&hl=en_US https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.blackberry...
- yantrams 7y agoMeego OS had it too.
- frosted-flakes 7y ago> The android app more-or-less does it as well. Emphasis on less. The Android implementation of the Hub is gimped compared to BB10. On BB10, tapping a conversation would open it directly in a sub-view, while on Android it acts more like an incomplete list of links, where clicking the link opens the app and breaks the back button. It's such a sub-par experience that I only use it for e-mail these days, where it excels (I haven't found anything better for email).
- matmann2001 7y agoI think I recall early Windows phone OS doing that as well.
- godDLL 7y agoYeah, forever I only wanted the BY-PERSON and BY-DATE functionality on my computing devices. BY-APP never was of any use for me, personally.
- heavyset_go 7y agoWebOS in the Palm Pre days got this correct.