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You can replace the built-in apps with different ones but this can go only go so far as to change the icons you tap on dashboard. The lack of unified way for ap
by Xion 14y ago
You can replace the built-in apps with different ones but this can go only go so far as to change the icons you tap on dashboard. The lack of unified way for apps to interact with each other is seriously crippling the platform's capabilities.
As I use both an iPad and Android phone on daily basis, I'm find this especially lacking in tablet setting. An app wants to open a web page in standalone browser? They will always do that in Safari. Sending an email? Only through the default app. About the only 3rd party application that I can consistently use from more than one place is probably Read It Later (called Pocket now) - and that's only because apps' developers took time specifically to integrate with it.
And that's basically how it works on iOS now: for application X to interact with Y, it must specifically account for Y. Any similar replacement app Y' or Y'' will not be supported unless handled separately. It's easy to see how this model doesn't scale to diversity.
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y agoPerhaps Apple can borrow something from Microsoft. Contracts seem like the perfect way to add cross-app communication in a restrictive App Store-only environment.
- cageface 14y agoThe really crippling constraint on iOS is the keyboard. After using Swype on Android for a while it is excruciatingly slow and tedious pecking out text one letter at a time on an iPhone. I'm using an iPhone these days because that's the platform I develop for and I don't really miss the flexibility of the Android intents much generally but the chilling effect Apple's control can have on innovation is really glaringly obvious in the keyboard.
- Feoh 14y agoI think you're missing Xion's point and taking the opportunity to complain about a pet peeve you have with the platform. Personally, I couldn't agree more with what he's saying. Users of other platforms (like Android) have had the ability for apps to interoperate (with intents, for example) since the very beginning, and IOS is dramatically behind in this regard.
- cageface 14y agoMy point is that, having used both, I don't miss the interoperability that Android offers via intents. It sounds good on paper but in practice it just gave me meaningless choices. But the ability to upgrade the keyboard was huge.
- lucian1900 14y agoJust like for you upgrading the keyboard was huge, for me upgrading the browser was huge. The fact that the platform encourages this sort of thing is key.