
Android Instant Apps: Android apps to run instantly without installation - riteshpatil732
http://mobisoftinfotech.com/resources/blog/android-instant-apps-android-apps-to-run-instantly-without-installation/
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IanCal
>For instance, you receive a link on food recipe from Buzzfeed video app on
your whatsapp and you want to view it. You just need to click on the link,
instead of asking you to install the app, it will open the link itself like a
website and video starts playing and you need not require to download an app.

I'm confused as to why this isn't just a link to a normal website. A cross
platform, open standard that works perfectly well for playing video. I don't
really want a big split into some simple websites and some bulky app partial
downloads to do something as simple as play a video.

> Suppose you are searching for a particular camera you want to buy in Google
> search engine, you type the model in search engine and you see an offer from
> B&H Photo, with one tap the B&H app opens up deep link right to the camera
> you want to buy.

Again, websites work perfectly well for this.

How much of the use of this will be cases like these?

Edit I should really add some more to this. I'm frequently having to switch to
desktop version of a website as it is, and that's really frustrating, am I
going to have to find a way of opening links in a third way dependent on who
they're pointing to?

~~~
whatever_dude
> Again, websites work perfectly well for this.

Not always. The idea here is that an app would be able to use some of the
phone's native features, making the user experience more straightforward.

Think about the camera purchase concept. If you open a website, once the user
has selected a product, they have to either login or enter payment information
(like a new credit card). But with a native micro-app, it can just start a
payment intent that accepts whatever the user has already saved to their OS
(through Google Pay). Basically two taps and you're done, as opposed to a
bunch of taps and filling some forms.

Much less friction, if done right. And that's just one example. I'm sure
people will come up with others.

I'm sure some publishers will want to abuse the system to force people to run
apps that have no benefit over a simple web page. Same problem contrived
"mobile" websites have. But at the same time there's a lot of micro-situations
where mini-apps serve the user in a much better fashion.

At least until HTML5+ has proper APIs for the features they need.

~~~
bobajeff
It's funny your example is covered by a new web api called PaymentRequest
which Google showed off at the very same conference where they announced this.

[http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2016/05/enhancing-
and...](http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2016/05/enhancing-android-pay-
apis.html?m=1)

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UnoriginalGuy
I'll take security nightmare for 500, Alex.

When I watched this at Google's conference and read the subsequent thread I
was extremely surprised to see no real discussion of the security headaches.

Google has added pop-up permissions for particularly sensitive information,
but this feature allows a malicious developer to run arbitrary app code on a
device without prior user consent so we have to think about security
differently.

Or to phase it another way, if app code gets more "free" access then
HTML/JS/CSS then it has already been utilised to escalate local access. So
people could use it in adverts (e.g. unique IDs, local storage, etc), to try
and bypass your proxy/VPN (via the default internet access permissions,
resource links, etc), to exploit new bugs in the system/Dalvik/libs, etc.

This reminds me of Flash/Java Applets all over again. Even if you trust Google
to do a better job, it is undeniable that this substantially expands the
number of attack vectors on Android as a platform.

~~~
rtpg
Well that's what the permissions are for right? To avoid "arbitrary" code.

I think we've gotten a bit better since the Flash days at writing VMs that
don't leak like a sieve. Would be nice if someone could go in and write the
entire Android VM in dart or something though...

~~~
ghusbands
If you keep up with security mailing lists and similar, you'll see that we've
not gotten significantly better. There are major security flaws found in well-
used software all the time. It's going to take us a long time to dig ourselves
out of this hole.

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scarface74
Hmmm. So Google invented a way to run small Java apps when you go to certain
pages in a browser. Why didn't someone think of this before?

~~~
pjmlp
I guess that is yet another feature they wanted to have for free. :)

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ghusbands
The security and platform lock-in risks are really quite high. An attacker who
finds a security flaw in Android being able to silently run their code on
devices, from web-sites, means that system attacks can then be done drive-by
from the web. I really hope there's an opt-out for this feature.

~~~
0x0
This will be great stuff when combined with the next 'echo "rootmydevice" >
/proc/sunxi_debug/sunxi_debug' ;)

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TeeWEE
This guy just wrote an article with things he heard. Instant apps don't JUST
WORK. As a developer you need to build support for it. Google didn't release
yet how this is done actually.

About the user experience.. He is probably right.

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lucio
This looks like adobe flash all over again. It should not be used when a
simple web page will do

~~~
computer
Java applets, actually.

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shade23
This I think is Google's Android based solution challenging the all
encompassing messaging apps(Wechat,kik) and Chrome Apps(Flipkart Lite).
Honestly I think the android ecosystem is fragmented enough .Enabling more
modularized formats would (in my opinion) make it worse. I wonder if this
would affect the number of installs and how this would affect popularity on
the app store. I have been an android developer for 3 years.And right now I
question myself that why would you need android apps in itself if you could
have a well developed browser based ecosystem(permissions/push notifications
and all that jazz) ,why would you need Android apps.

Currently I view Android apps as the desktop apps equivalent in other systems.

PS:I agree with offline apps like readers/games etc.Online apps whose complete
dependence is on APIs.I cannot understand the need for that.

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realusername
I already see something along "To view this website, please use Android
greater than 6.0.". It looks a nice idea from the outside but in practice, it
will lead to a more fragmented, insecure and bloated version of the web for
Android users.

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paulddraper
I felt pretty good until I realized I'd invented webpages.

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kowdermeister
I think if this will fly it will be used by advertisers to run more crap on
devices if the need more horsepower.

Otherwise I don't see why wouldn't I just build it with JS.

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satysin
I see this being a lot more important on Chrome OS tbh. Having a "real" app
that (close to) instantly downloads and runs using just the bits it needs, in
a nicely sandboxed environment is pretty damn cool.

They just need to avoid the ActiveX/Java Applets mistakes and it could be a
big threat to Windows.

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0x0
So, java applets? :)

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walterbell
_> Android Instant Apps uses runtime permissions model introduced in Android
6.0_

Is there a user-configurable default policy for Instant Apps, or do the apps
prompt for individual permissions as needed, like iOS?

~~~
jamstruth
Android 6 introduced individual permission prompts when they are needed.

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imakesoft
This is so strange that I have hard time understanding it. :) Sounds like a
potential security issues to me.

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mtgx
But they still run locally, right? Or are you just connecting to Google's
cloud to run them there?

~~~
de_dave
My assumption is that layouts/graphics are downloaded to the device, but
application logic is run remotely.

Can't find any confirmation though.

~~~
kinlan
The APK is downloaded and run on device.

~~~
de_dave
How does that work if the APK is huge (or bigger than a couple of megs at
least)? That doesn't seem very "instant" to me...

Is the APK re-arranged perhaps so it can, in effect, "progressively" download
the app as required?

~~~
Fargren
Yes, this is the idea.

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post_break
Anyone else see this as a way to keep selling 16GB phones?

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Jach
Relevant XKCD: [https://xkcd.com/1367/](https://xkcd.com/1367/)

~~~
Pxtl
Other relevant xkcd: [https://xkcd.com/1174/](https://xkcd.com/1174/)

