

Apple’s “Handoff” Technology Shows Us the Future of Run-Anywhere Applications - dlevine
http://blog.thirdyearmba.com/apples-handoff-technology-shows-us-the-future-of-run-anywhere-applications

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itsame
I don't quite see when in the keynote Apple demonstrated the run-anywhere
_applications_ that's discussed in this blog entry. These are all different
implementations of applications running on their respective platforms,
integrated through the cloud. It's nothing new at the most basic level, and
nothing new at the application level. What Apple's done is integrate
everything in a fairly seamless fashion. Certainly Apple gets kudos for their
execution (the proximity stuff was cool), but in the end, integration through
the cloud and being able to pick up where you left off is something that has
already been demonstrated by Google (along with other companies) with stuff
like Chrome syncing and the Google Docs suite of applications.

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massel
I could be mistaken, but I don't think the integration is through the cloud.
It looks like it's built on the same tech as airdrop, using bluetooth 4.0 to
exchange bonjour data then build an ad-hoc wifi network to transfer data
(might skip the wifi for tiny transfers like email contents)

Otherwise, the stuff like instant tethering wouldn't work because the devices
would never be able to connect - also it seemed too fast in the demo to be
making the round trip to the cloud, though that _is_ the nature of demos

~~~
itsame
Admittedly I can only make guesses as to the actual implementation. It may
well be through the cloud, through some Bluetooth/Wi-Fi communication, or
maybe even a mixture for all we know. Nevertheless, my point is that the
concepts and the high-level integration in and of themselves are not
particularly novel.

Again that's not to discount what Apple has achieved here. In typical Apple
fashion, their excellent execution of existing concepts is where their value
proposition lies, and this is no exception.

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solomatov
We already have run-anywhere applications. They are called web applications. I
don't see how Apple might improve something here. I can start creating email
in GMail on iPhone and continue to edit it on PC and many other web apps have
similar functionality.

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interpol_p
Apple's improvement is in reducing the friction. When the devices are in
proximity you literally swipe the icon and are instantly in exactly the same
state you left off — on a different device. Web apps don't do it like this,
and I think that's an important aspect of the attraction here.

~~~
solomatov
>When the devices are in proximity you literally swipe the icon and are
instantly in exactly the same state you left off — on a different device. Web
apps don't do it like this, and I think that's an important aspect of the
attraction here.

Web applications DO this. Take a look at google docs. Thanks to technologies
such as operational transformation, this is possible.

~~~
interpol_p
I am not familiar with any web apps (Google docs included) that put an icon on
the lock screen of a device within proximity that you can swipe to be
instantly at your editing position ready to continue. This is what I refer to
when I say "reducing friction".

~~~
solomatov
It's not the problem with web apps, it's a problem with Apple who doesn't
provide such an API. Chrome and Safari has notification API and it can be
implemented in a way to support this.

~~~
interpol_p
I didn't say web apps _can 't_ do this — just that they currently _do not do
this_. Certainly not in the way I saw handoff working at WWDC.

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moyaRD
Seeing this in the context of Microsoft approach to resolve the problem :
“Moving their developers to a common platform for running the same code in
every device”.

Apple is moving developers to optimize the experience for each device.
Microsoft in the other hand is trying to cramp every user scenario to one
single device ( surface) and preaching that having access to the app in every
device is equal to running the same code. This approach surprises me, because
of the excellent cloud solution that Microsoft is promoting , that can be the
fabric that connect their app experience across devices.

An app is an experience that can be access from multiple devices/platform each
one tailor to the native environment. The challenge is to provide a seamless
transition between this devices, and that is what apple is trying to do with
handoff.

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threepipeproblm
"The thing that excites me about this announcement is the potential of
interoperable, run-anywhere applications."

I had to laugh at this.

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andrewguenther
I'm not sure what the author is trying to say here. They define "run anywhere"
as a single implementation able to run on multiple devices, all having access
to the same data? Isn't that what databases are for? How does Apple offering a
closed-off service only for iOS, Mac, and web apps to sync data the future of
anything?

~~~
dlevine
Databases only allow access to persistent data. To accomplish what Apple does
with Handoff, they also need to sync application state.

Although today's keynote was clearly a demo, it does show us the potential of
run-anywhere apps.

~~~
fomojola
Slightly redundant, but application state really should just be considered
additional data: Amazon has done the "resume reading on the same page on a
different device" for some time unless I'm wrong. The CHOICE to sync the
specific screen in the app as well as the contents of that screen might be a
unique thing (and definitely makes for a good demo), but at this point we're
just picking how far down the rabbit hole we want to go.

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return0
This can already be achieved if we use browser-only apps instead of
desktop/mobile.

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DigitalSea
Here we go again. Apple announces a pre-existing technology and people start
proclaiming how revolutionary that it is. The latest keynote officially once
and for all highlights the fact Apple have stopped innovating. Sorry to say
it, but the era in which Steve Jobs steered Apple to the top through
innovation is well and truly over.

The whole premise of apps sharing data in realtime is something that people
have been doing for some time in web applications in particular for sometime
now. Throw in Node.js, Socket.io and some HTML and I've created an app that
works in real-time on multiple devices and I've recreated what Apple's new
functionality does. This isn't new, lets not misguide ourselves into thinking
this is a new technological marvel. Native apps have theoretically been able
to do this for ages now, Apple have just made it easier for native apps to
talk to other apps easier.

 _" I can see a future where developers build a single version of their app
that runs on iPhone, iPad, and Mac OS X (and hopefully Linux, Android, and
Windows OSes, although let’s leave that discussion for another time)"_ The
future is already here in that regard. You can achieve this through web
applications. Sure, you don't get the same performance as a native app, but it
is definitely already possible. There are already solutions out there like
Multimedia Fusion and Flash that allow you to build an app in a non-native
language, then compile it for iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, Windows Phone, Android
and more. I would call this write once, run everywhere.

