I would have to respectfully disagree with that. Cell phones are converging and becoming more "communication devices". That means, however you want to communicate (voice, IMs, email, messaging, video, etc.) it will be on a phone. I have a feeling it's because of the reasonable size of a phone, as opposed to a tablet/netbook/laptop -- it's much easier to strap a small device on to your belt so you have two hands free, than it is to carry something. As well, the user is in constant contact, which is better than having to be in front of a computer for some occupations.
To eliminate one of the communication methods (or, at least, restrict it so much that every other phone does more and better things for that method), is just short-sighted. I'm not overly concerned about the Gmail app (as most businesses and individuals won't use Gmail but their own), so if you were to never build hooks into doing things with it then that would be a business decision by those in charge of the OS. However, if the ability for third-party development shops isn't there for expanding what the on-device applications can do, other devices will slowly overtake and surpass the lagging device. Oh, there's always the "solution" of creating a full application with the additional functionalities built in, but then when a customer wants to have multiples, what do they do? An example would be if someone wanted the ability to use both S/MIME and third-party mime- type handler for a specific attachment type (let's call it "application/abc" and the files end with ".abc"). The customer could download a mail program with S/MIME built in, as well as another one with the mime-type handler built in. This would cause issues with the user when he downloaded an email with one thing in it to the wrong email application. An Anonymous Guy On Jun 16, 9:39 pm, Dianne Hackborn <[email protected]> wrote: > I wouldn't expect it to "mature" much in this regard. At least not any time > soon. First, the Gmail app is owned by Google, and by its nature is pretty > self-contained and unlikely to rely on any generic platform e-mail mechanism > you could intercept. (Think of it the same way as the user using gmail in > their web browser on a desktop.) Second, I don't think there is any > interest in any time soon having some kind of e-mail content provider or > back-end storage that mail apps would use, so the platform's generic e-mail > app will remain fairly self contained, and anyway I think it is something > that individual devices are likely to significantly customize or outright > replace. > > On Tue, Jun 16, 2009 at 5:12 PM, Anonymous Guy <[email protected] > > > > > > > wrote: > > > On Jun 16, 7:38 pm, Dianne Hackborn <[email protected]> wrote: > > > No there isn't. > > > Ok, thanks for the info. That's too bad, really. > > > > There is a generic e-mail application that ships with the > > > platform, the special Gmail application from Google, and who knows what > > > other e-mail applications that other manufacturers can include or users > > can > > > download from the market. There is thus no generic platform concept of > > > interacting with outgoing e-mail. > > > I was mostly aiming at the internal email apps. Seems the only way to > > do it is to create an email application with the functionality I want > > built in. I think I'll wait to see if the platform matures enough, > > first. :P > > > An Anonymous Guy > > -- > Dianne Hackborn > Android framework engineer > [email protected] > > Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to > provide private support, and so won't reply to such e-mails. All such > questions should be posted on public forums, where I and others can see and > answer them. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
