5 ms·

Google Announces Plans To Bake Android-Like Web Intents Into Chrome

108 points by joelhaus 15y ago

ez77 15y ago
Official announcement: http://blog.chromium.org/2011/08/connecting-web-apps-with-web-intents.html http://blog.chromium.org/2011/08/connecting-web-apps-with-we...
- beaumartinez 15y ago
  Project web page: http://webintents.org/ http://webintents.org/
skrebbel 15y ago
Aren't we all supposed to scream "non standard!!" like we did when IE added behaviors?
- nodata 15y ago
  I am screaming very loudly.
- lclarkmichalek 15y ago
  The fact that Mozilla are working on it alongside Google should quieten the screams, and they do also have a javascript library for IE, Safari, Chrome and FF3.
- andybak 15y ago
  Back then there was a reasonable fear that behaviours was typical Microsoft 'embrace and extend' move that I don't think is present in this case. The fact that they are already working with Mozilla is a good sign and it wouldn't be in Google's strategic interests to make this proprietary.
- Udo 15y ago
  No. Browser makers should actually innovate more. The problem with "non standard" comes only from the instances where IE does standard behavior in a completely idiosyncratic way or not at all. There are tons of interesting things that are not part of any W3C specs. Of course browser developers should be creative. But they should not, as the IE team does again and again, make a lot of proprietary extensions _instead_ of implementing the standard specs that cover the same functionality.
- zhyder 15y ago
  Like when IE added XHR? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XHR#History_and_support http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XHR#History_and_support
- Andrex 15y ago
  If you were smart when IE started adding features, you would analyze the feature in question before throwing your hands up and shouting about MS. For instance, XMLHttpRequest was a fricking cool innovation. MS's problem traditionally has been that it doesn't open the spec for these sorts of things until much later, if at all. This is a tendency Google does not really share when it adds features to Chrome. For instance, before Google officially started working on Web Intents, an employee of theirs and one from Mozilla came up with different ideas for how intents should be handled. They agreed on a preliminary spec and now that spec is open for anyone to implement.
  - nkassis 15y ago
    That's exactly it. If we complained about every new feature we'd still be using static pages with blink tags. Google and Firefox are teaming up to implement this features. Look at how Google went about WebGL. They had a competing plugin called O3D but when they saw O3D was working out they dropped it completely and even ported the O3D api to WebGL (which I use now since then). Microsoft of old would just have kept going (hence DirectX instead of continuing to support OpenGL).
- budu3 15y ago
  Yes, I am also concerned. I hope they go forward with Microsoft and Opera on board.
- joeshaw 15y ago
  Another important difference thus far unmentioned is that IE is a browser for a single platform, and Microsoft traditionally has not done a good job in creating IE features in a cross-platform way. (I'm thinking of ActiveX specifically here.) If a feature is led by Chrome, Firefox, or Opera you know that any native platform hooks have been designed thoughtfully to work nicely across at least the 3 major desktop platforms.
cageface 15y ago
How well have intents actually worked out in practice on Android? It's been awhile since I spent much time with an Android device but a year or so ago it was very rare that I really wanted a generic utility.
- rmc 15y ago
  It's convient for lots of things, e.g. if you install a new twitter client suddenly when you take a photograph and want to share it, that app can now show up as a way to share that photo.
  - fpgeek 15y ago
    It is also convenient for the Google+ client, where you could share with it just like a Twitter or Facebook client on day 1. Sadly, the Google+ client doesn't share out yet, but hopefully that's coming.
- JonWood 15y ago
  They're all over the place for core functions - whenever you click a "Share" button it will ask which applications can handle the content you want to share and add them to the menu. I've also been prompted to choose whether I want to make phone calls using the built in dialer or Skype, which I presume is using intents as well. Where I've not see so much use is providing completely new intents, presumably because its so hard to get any sort of agreement on how they should be implemented.
  - CWIZO 15y ago
    BlackBerry has this also. I can share anything with any app that I have installed (and that can support sharing of some sort). I don't know how this is implemented or if it is even the same principal as this behind the scenes...
  - fpgeek 15y ago
    To add another example, alternate launchers hook at least one intent (the one triggered when you press the home button) and possibly more.
bni 15y ago
I want Google Chrome in Android, not the other way around.
- Andrex 15y ago
  Why not both? Btw Chrome is already on Android. Well, for Google TV at least. It's great that there's this cross-pollination of ideas. Makes for better software.
- ConstantineXVI 15y ago
  If Chrome was a proper part of Android; it'd lose one of it's primary strengths, namely seamless automatic updating. Android's constrained by the certification process of carriers, and thus can't move nearly as fast as Chrome can on it's own. Seems like a small thing, but attaching the Chrome name to a browser that can't quite match the real thing would drag down desktop Chrome's reputation. A more cynical attitude could be that Chrome intends to be it's own platform (see Chrome OS), and the Android team doesn't want to wake up one day and end up as nothing more than the gory bits between Chrome and the hardware (as Windows already is is for some people).
  - MatthewPhillips 15y ago
    Autoupdating is not possible on any mobile OS I'm aware of, for security reasons. What should happen is Google (and Apple and Microsoft, etc.) need to implement autoupdating at the OS level. With user permission, of course. And I mean true, silent autoupdating. When a developer publishes a new version of the app it should download the package, then apply the update the next time that application is closed. As for your cynical observation, I doubt there is any conspiratorial reason for this. I think it has more to do with Android operating more or less like an independent startup inside Google. I think the Android browser would be much better if the Chrome team was behind it.
    - jellicle 15y ago
      Android apps have an "allow automatic update" checkbox. If the box is checked, and the new version of the application has the same permissions as the old one, the application auto-updates.
RexRollman 15y ago
In my opinion, feature creep is starting to bloat Chrome.
Udo 15y ago
This is an incredibly cool idea that essentially brings back the concept of a decentralized web. Right now, we have somehow embraced a monolithic web culture were interop goes only in one direction - towards Facebook mainly, closely followed by Google's conglomerate. Web Intents will level the playing field again, and they make those horrible embedded Facebook/Google+/whatever social networking buttons obsolete by replacing them with something way more powerful.
- fpgeek 15y ago
  For a concrete example of the power of Web Intents, consider this: On Android, a browser (whether the stock or an alternative like Dolphin or Firefox) could (and probably will given the architecture / history) offer some local Android Intent handlers as handlers for some Web Intents. To take the example from the blog post, at the photo storage website you could choose to edit an image and get menu of choices that doesn't just include web app image editors, but also includes native image editors installed on your device. That sounds pretty amazing to me.
nivertech 15y ago
I think custom URL schemes like: mailto:, tel:, sms:, twitter: are kinda like lightweight intents. http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#featuredarticles/iPhoneURLScheme_Reference/Articles/PhoneLinks.html http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#featuredarticles/iPh...
- fpgeek 15y ago
  On the raising side, you're absolutely right. A custom URL scheme generally captures what you want to do (i.e. the intent) not how. On the handling side, however, on iOS there are limitations that I think make them qualitatively different: - only one application can handle any given URL scheme - no mechanism (other than Apple apps win) for choosing between apps that want to handle a URL scheme - no notion of optionally handling a URL scheme based on its contents (which enables very useful filter-like behavior) - no notion of "returning" to whatever raised the request (there are schemes to hack around this, but they are limited and brittle) - built-in support for carrying general payloads (rather than having to encode them in a URL)
- pornel 15y ago
  There is overlap. I hope HTML5 will dump registerProtocolHandler() and extend Intents API to use scheme in addition to MIME type.
joeshaw 15y ago
I like the idea, but is anyone else worried about the user interface? I don't like the thought of any site I happen to drive by registering their ability to handle intents. When it does become time for me to edit a photo, I don't want 50 choices popping up, nearly none of which I remember. And, it seems rife with phishing opportunities. I'm not sure what the answer is here. I also don't want to be asked every time a site wants to register an intent. If you just make it opt-in, it seems like most users will simply miss the opportunity to do so.

108 points by joelhaus 15y ago

ez77 15y ago

Official announcement: http://blog.chromium.org/2011/08/connecting-web-apps-with-web-intents.html http://blog.chromium.org/2011/08/connecting-web-apps-with-we...

beaumartinez 15y ago
Project web page: http://webintents.org/ http://webintents.org/

skrebbel 15y ago

Aren't we all supposed to scream "non standard!!" like we did when IE added behaviors?

nodata 15y ago
I am screaming very loudly.
lclarkmichalek 15y ago
The fact that Mozilla are working on it alongside Google should quieten the screams, and they do also have a javascript library for IE, Safari, Chrome and FF3.
andybak 15y ago
Back then there was a reasonable fear that behaviours was typical Microsoft 'embrace and extend' move that I don't think is present in this case. The fact that they are already working with Mozilla is a good sign and it wouldn't be in Google's strategic interests to make this proprietary.
Udo 15y ago
No. Browser makers should actually innovate more. The problem with "non standard" comes only from the instances where IE does standard behavior in a completely idiosyncratic way or not at all. There are tons of interesting things that are not part of any W3C specs. Of course browser developers should be creative. But they should not, as the IE team does again and again, make a lot of proprietary extensions _instead_ of implementing the standard specs that cover the same functionality.
zhyder 15y ago
Like when IE added XHR? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XHR#History_and_support http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XHR#History_and_support
Andrex 15y ago
If you were smart when IE started adding features, you would analyze the feature in question before throwing your hands up and shouting about MS. For instance, XMLHttpRequest was a fricking cool innovation. MS's problem traditionally has been that it doesn't open the spec for these sorts of things until much later, if at all. This is a tendency Google does not really share when it adds features to Chrome. For instance, before Google officially started working on Web Intents, an employee of theirs and one from Mozilla came up with different ideas for how intents should be handled. They agreed on a preliminary spec and now that spec is open for anyone to implement.
- nkassis 15y ago
  That's exactly it. If we complained about every new feature we'd still be using static pages with blink tags. Google and Firefox are teaming up to implement this features. Look at how Google went about WebGL. They had a competing plugin called O3D but when they saw O3D was working out they dropped it completely and even ported the O3D api to WebGL (which I use now since then). Microsoft of old would just have kept going (hence DirectX instead of continuing to support OpenGL).
budu3 15y ago
Yes, I am also concerned. I hope they go forward with Microsoft and Opera on board.
joeshaw 15y ago
Another important difference thus far unmentioned is that IE is a browser for a single platform, and Microsoft traditionally has not done a good job in creating IE features in a cross-platform way. (I'm thinking of ActiveX specifically here.) If a feature is led by Chrome, Firefox, or Opera you know that any native platform hooks have been designed thoughtfully to work nicely across at least the 3 major desktop platforms.

cageface 15y ago

How well have intents actually worked out in practice on Android? It's been awhile since I spent much time with an Android device but a year or so ago it was very rare that I really wanted a generic utility.

rmc 15y ago
It's convient for lots of things, e.g. if you install a new twitter client suddenly when you take a photograph and want to share it, that app can now show up as a way to share that photo.
- fpgeek 15y ago
  It is also convenient for the Google+ client, where you could share with it just like a Twitter or Facebook client on day 1. Sadly, the Google+ client doesn't share out yet, but hopefully that's coming.
JonWood 15y ago
They're all over the place for core functions - whenever you click a "Share" button it will ask which applications can handle the content you want to share and add them to the menu. I've also been prompted to choose whether I want to make phone calls using the built in dialer or Skype, which I presume is using intents as well. Where I've not see so much use is providing completely new intents, presumably because its so hard to get any sort of agreement on how they should be implemented.
- CWIZO 15y ago
  BlackBerry has this also. I can share anything with any app that I have installed (and that can support sharing of some sort). I don't know how this is implemented or if it is even the same principal as this behind the scenes...
- fpgeek 15y ago
  To add another example, alternate launchers hook at least one intent (the one triggered when you press the home button) and possibly more.

bni 15y ago

I want Google Chrome in Android, not the other way around.

Andrex 15y ago
Why not both? Btw Chrome is already on Android. Well, for Google TV at least. It's great that there's this cross-pollination of ideas. Makes for better software.
ConstantineXVI 15y ago
If Chrome was a proper part of Android; it'd lose one of it's primary strengths, namely seamless automatic updating. Android's constrained by the certification process of carriers, and thus can't move nearly as fast as Chrome can on it's own. Seems like a small thing, but attaching the Chrome name to a browser that can't quite match the real thing would drag down desktop Chrome's reputation. A more cynical attitude could be that Chrome intends to be it's own platform (see Chrome OS), and the Android team doesn't want to wake up one day and end up as nothing more than the gory bits between Chrome and the hardware (as Windows already is is for some people).
- MatthewPhillips 15y ago
  Autoupdating is not possible on any mobile OS I'm aware of, for security reasons. What should happen is Google (and Apple and Microsoft, etc.) need to implement autoupdating at the OS level. With user permission, of course. And I mean true, silent autoupdating. When a developer publishes a new version of the app it should download the package, then apply the update the next time that application is closed. As for your cynical observation, I doubt there is any conspiratorial reason for this. I think it has more to do with Android operating more or less like an independent startup inside Google. I think the Android browser would be much better if the Chrome team was behind it.
  - jellicle 15y ago
    Android apps have an "allow automatic update" checkbox. If the box is checked, and the new version of the application has the same permissions as the old one, the application auto-updates.

RexRollman 15y ago

In my opinion, feature creep is starting to bloat Chrome.

Udo 15y ago

This is an incredibly cool idea that essentially brings back the concept of a decentralized web. Right now, we have somehow embraced a monolithic web culture were interop goes only in one direction - towards Facebook mainly, closely followed by Google's conglomerate. Web Intents will level the playing field again, and they make those horrible embedded Facebook/Google+/whatever social networking buttons obsolete by replacing them with something way more powerful.

fpgeek 15y ago
For a concrete example of the power of Web Intents, consider this: On Android, a browser (whether the stock or an alternative like Dolphin or Firefox) could (and probably will given the architecture / history) offer some local Android Intent handlers as handlers for some Web Intents. To take the example from the blog post, at the photo storage website you could choose to edit an image and get menu of choices that doesn't just include web app image editors, but also includes native image editors installed on your device. That sounds pretty amazing to me.

nivertech 15y ago

I think custom URL schemes like: mailto:, tel:, sms:, twitter: are kinda like lightweight intents. http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#featuredarticles/iPhoneURLScheme_Reference/Articles/PhoneLinks.html http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#featuredarticles/iPh...

fpgeek 15y ago
On the raising side, you're absolutely right. A custom URL scheme generally captures what you want to do (i.e. the intent) not how. On the handling side, however, on iOS there are limitations that I think make them qualitatively different: - only one application can handle any given URL scheme - no mechanism (other than Apple apps win) for choosing between apps that want to handle a URL scheme - no notion of optionally handling a URL scheme based on its contents (which enables very useful filter-like behavior) - no notion of "returning" to whatever raised the request (there are schemes to hack around this, but they are limited and brittle) - built-in support for carrying general payloads (rather than having to encode them in a URL)
pornel 15y ago
There is overlap. I hope HTML5 will dump registerProtocolHandler() and extend Intents API to use scheme in addition to MIME type.

joeshaw 15y ago

I like the idea, but is anyone else worried about the user interface? I don't like the thought of any site I happen to drive by registering their ability to handle intents. When it does become time for me to edit a photo, I don't want 50 choices popping up, nearly none of which I remember. And, it seems rife with phishing opportunities. I'm not sure what the answer is here. I also don't want to be asked every time a site wants to register an intent. If you just make it opt-in, it seems like most users will simply miss the opportunity to do so.