Fred Wilson called out Android Sharing today and I agree it is by far one of the coolest and best features I’ve used in a mobile device. I believe the technology is called intents. It’s essentially a system pivot and enables most apps to talk quickly to each other to make use of content across the system. I use it constantly!
Sharing gives me quick access to save articles to Pocket to read later, easily share links from Chrome via email, email images captured as screenshots and a ton of other tricks. What’s also awesome about Android in general is the multitasking so for example saving a page to Pocket happens in the background and ensures my content is ready without having to open and refresh / sync like on my iPhone. On iOS some of this is system level, like email, but saving things to Pocket or taking advantage of a screenshot just snapped requires some extra steps. With the update to Jelly Bean the fluidity of Android is amazing and I’m finding myself reaching for my Nexus devices far more often than before. Sharing and the actions I’m empowered to use are a big part of this.
Intents are one of the early cooler features of Android, and are definitely a distinguishing point where they extended a mobile feature from NewtonOS to some degree, and where iOS didn’t grab it.
I keep looking for it on iOS devices, and get lightly frustrated – just as I get lightly frustrated when tap to jump to top doesn’t work on Android….
jump to top is sorely missing …
I recall the Newton “soup” which was amazing in it’s time. Hard to believe no one else picked up on that as things evolved along.