[rcoh]

1. I'm thinking of it being connected with Google Play.

2. Once you've increased the scope beyond the apps on the device, work needs to be done to show the most relevant and useful actions.

3. Enabling flows like:

- Take file from one app, edit in another app, save back over the original file

- Take an email attachment, edit / modify in another app, then reply back on the same thread

4. But there is no reason a third party can't come in and make it happen.

[RyanZAG]

Good points. The problem with creating this is that it would need system level access for each OS, I think. Adding these kind of intents into Windows or OSX would be easy enough, and adding them into browsers should be possible too (Firefox, at least, would be open to it). I can't see how you'd ever get this added into iOS. Google is unlikely to extend intents in this way for Android as it would break backwards compatibility also.

I think the technical challenge may be too great for current gen OSes and browsers? Perhaps we will see a system like this arise on the 'next battlefield', whatever that might be.

Here's hoping someone works it out. The system itself is not that difficult to understand or to implement, it's the logistics of it that would be difficult and (by definition) need a lot more collaboration between corps than currently.

Web Intents [1] are a push in this direction, but adoption is extremely slow and does not look like it is going to take place.

[1] http://webintents.org/