Apps Everywhere, but No Unifying Link

Navigating the Internet used to mean painstakingly typing the exact address you wanted into your computer. The web browser and the search engine simplified that, giving us the Internet we take for granted today.

Now, across Silicon Valley, companies from tiny start-ups to titans like Google and Facebook are trying to bring the same simplicity to smartphones by teaching apps to talk to one another.

As people spend more time using apps, their Internet has taken a step backward, becoming more isolated - more like the web before search engines.

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***** Moderator's Note *****

Heaven forfend! The web *before* search engines?! OMG by BFF mite hv 2 lrn Gopher!

But, seriously, I wonder /which/ apps these "titans" have in mind as most needing to "talk" to one another: if a calendar entry mentions the address of a restaurant in the "wrong" part of town, will I show up on my boss' list of employees who were in a certain area at the time of a union meeting?

Bill Horne Moderator

Reply to
Monty Solomon
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The article gives examples: for instance, you use an app to search for hotels, and find one you like. So you want to mail a link to your companion, like you might do if you'd found it with a web search. But there's no such thing as a "link" to an app page.

The example I thought of first was integration between map apps and other applications. You search for a restaurant or attraction in some app, and then you want directions to walk/drive there.

- - Barry Margolin, snipped-for-privacy@alum.mit.edu Arlington, MA

*** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me *** ***** Moderator's Note *****

I'm more interested in what the article doesn't give: there are no cautionary notes about the possible misuse of the location, contact, and time-of-day information that cellular users would be handing over to anonymous third-parties.

Bill Horne Moderator

Reply to
Barry Margolin

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