Next for iOS: better sharing

By -
There is one important area where Android and Windows 8 are ahead of iOS: sharing data between applications [1]. Interestingly the foundations for improving things have already been laid. There are two parts when it comes to sharing: offering data and receiving data. The offering part already exists [2]: many apps have a “sharing” button. For example, things that can be done with the current page in Safari include: Create a bookmark, send the URL via email, tweet the URL.





Sharing in Safari on an iPhone


However, the receiving part is still limited. iOS has built-in support for email, Twitter and more, but you can’t plug into the system with your own app. That is likely to change soon, as explained in a tweet by @chpwn:


New, private iOS 6 feature Apple is using: remote view controllers. For example: the Mail compose view is now run in a separate process.

Consult [3] for details.
I can’t wait for Dropbox to be a sharing plugin, then you can send files to it from everywhere and from it to any other sharing plugin.
After the wish of better sharing has been fulfilled, I would love to be able to configure my default browser and my default maps app on iOS.


References:


  1. “What iOS Should Learn from Android and Windows 8” by Ole Begemann

  2. “The State of Sharing in iOS 6” by Ole Begemann

  3. “Remote View Controllers in iOS 6” by Ole Begemann


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Steve Lopez and the Importance of Newspapers

By -
Image
It has been one year since I cancelled my subscriptions to The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times . In that time, I continued to read both publications online. My assessment of this experiment is that reading newspapers and journalism online is vastly inferior to the hard copy thrown on my porch each morning. So I restarted my subscription to the Los Angeles Times and I have made it a point to buy The New York Times as often as I pass one of those coin boxes or my local news stand. The catalyst for this re-evaluation resulted from catching the film, The Soloist on cable last week. I liked the movie, although the scenes I found most interesting were the ones that showed columnist Steve Lopez at work. I realized the book was sitting in my “to-read” stack, so I pulled it and began reading. The book, as I expected, is better than the film. Lopez clearly addresses the revolution occurring in journalism, and worries about his future with the paper even as he researches and writes...
Keep reading

Ideas for fixing unconnected computing

By -
I traveled quite a bit recently and got exposed to a negative aspect of current technology: Things work well if you have a solid internet connection with no traffic limits and are plugged into a power outlet. Otherwise, things do not work well at all. This blog post describes the problems that arise and suggests solutions. Managing data traffic Cell phones are quite good at conserving traffic, laptops much less so. This becomes a problem when your laptop has a mobile connection (e.g., via tethering or in a hotel with data caps). I once accidentally started iTunes in such a situation and immediately used up my daily allowance of traffic. Similarly, mobile email is frugal with traffic (only the current folder is updated, attachments are only downloaded on demand, etc.), desktop email is usually not. How can this be handled better? I’d like to see three traffic modes for all operating systems: “full”, “restricted”, “minimal”: In full traffic mode , all data transfers are allowed and happe...
Keep reading

Omar to kill me

By -
Image
  The sentence “ Omar m’a tuer ” is unintelligible French, as if it had been written by an illiterate person. At first sight, Mme Ghislaine Marchal —the author of those words in blood—seems to be saying that she had been killed by Omar in her villa at Mougins (Alpes-Maritimes). But why would that dying French lady have used such poor grammar? On that flimsy evidence, in 1991, the Moroccan gardener Omar Raddad was condemned and jailed. But he persisted non-stop upon his innocence. In 1998, he was liberated, and now lives in Morocco. A recent analysis of DNA specimens from the scene of the crime provides new facts. Four males, none of whom was Omar Raddad, have left traces of their presence. Will the real murderer be identified at last?
Keep reading