I'd also like to make a completely separate point -- not addressed at
{ Devdroid }.
I would argue that third-party vendors who replace one app with
another that responds to the same intents WITHOUT DUPLICATING THE
CONTRACT EXACTLY are committing a very grave sin, and should be
reviled throughout the land.
This, more than developers calling undocumented intents, is what
destabilizes the platform. If you're going to replace an app, then
REPLACE it with a DIFFERENT one, not one that pretends to be the same
app.
I think Google should take strong steps to discourage such behavior,
including denying access to the Market, the Google and Android logo,
marketing assistance, and all other tools at their disposal.
I also think that Google should take milder steps to discourage
vendors from replacing apps at all. Adding better versions, or
extending existing ones in a compatible way, are much better
approaches.
Finally, I think Google should be trying vigorously to encourage
vendors to help ENHANCE apps, to allow them to cleanly extend apps via
documented intents and broadcasts, rather than taking these other
approaches that serve only to fragment and destabilize the platform.
I think it rather unfair to blame developers for wanting to use these
intents. These ARE how the platform is designed to integrate. I think
it is a major platform failure that developers cannot do this without
all these negatives, and I think it needs to be addressed through
better policies.
In other words, I don't think the harm to the platform really stems
from the tactical error of developers making use of undocumented
intents, but rather from fundamental platform strategic errors.
On Aug 1, 5:53 pm, Mark Murphy <mmur...@commonsware.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 1, 2010 at 7:51 PM, { Devdroid } <webnet.andr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> There are certainly scenarios in which starting an undocumented
> activity from an undocumented Intent will cause crashes. For example,
> the activity may be expecting Intent extras that you fail to supply,
> because their version of the activity assumes that third-party
> developers are playing by the rules and they simply didn't bother to
> test the scenario where somebody opens their version of the activity
> without those extras.
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