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On{X}: The Coolest Thing to Happen to Android. Courtesy of… Microsoft Israel?
- shadesandcolour 14y agoIFTTT meets Tasker. Cool
- dfxm12 14y agoUnfortunately, the app requires that you login with Facebook.
- killnine 14y agoThere is more talk about facebook sucking/going under these days then I can remember about any web company and it seems everyday I come across a new technology that will only allow me to use it if I have fb. There are so many other options too. BrowserID? So thre devs are too lazy to build their own auth sys, or too lazy to provide more than one federated auth sys and therefore they never get customers they could have had?
- saary 14y agoFacebook was chosen for the beta. What other authentication schemes would you expect? (besides creating a dedicated account)
- AndrewDucker 14y agoBrowserID OpenID A dedicated account (my preference) If you require Facebook then you're locking me out when I'm at work.
- saary 14y agoThanks. BrowserID is well on our list (Personally I like its approach). Added a vote for OpenId, and dedicated account.
- StavrosK 14y agoI'll give a +1 on BrowserID, I think it should be used on as much new stuff as possible. I really love it.
- Bjartr 14y ago+1 for google account, dedicated account, and live account, in that order of preference. Facebook just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
- dorian-graph 14y agoNothing wrong with an old fashioned dedicated account. I refuse to use my Facebook login for, well, basically anything that isn't Facebook.
- guelo 14y agoWindows Live ID?
- dbrosius 14y agooh well. on{EXIT}
- nucleardog 14y agoWhelp. Guess I'm off to register "Dickface McCuntington" or "Juan DelTaco" or something...
- altrego99 14y agoI use llama for Android, which is a free app where you can do these things. The drawback it has is that there you do not get to program your scenarios using javascript, you instead need to create them through a GUI on phone. Can the browser/login be completely removed from the picture, so that you get to manage your own scenarios either online or at home computer and push some compiled file to the phone yourself?
- webwanderings 14y agoThat was one cool looking video!
- darklajid 14y agoI thought that stuff was well covered already, with the leader being Locale (iirc). Did anyone try a couple of these and can provide a comparison? The article is light on details, the biggest difference that I noticed is the configuration via a website. Well, and the Facebook login downer.
- saary 14y agoThe main difference is that you can write a JavaScript snippet that is pushed to your phone and executes. The JavaScript can register on device triggers and you can control the logic to do whatever you like. You can code it to be very specific in contrast to other rule based platform which have to be broad to cover main scenarios. You still have pre-coded recipes which you can choose and quickly configure and install, and one of the coolest things is that you can actual see the recipe's code and hack it to your own profit :)
- darklajid 14y agoThanks for the rundown and explanation. And I'm glad that you're planning to make FB optional.
- joelhaasnoot 14y agoLocale is no longer free though correct? I downloaded it in beta and tried some things but it was a little overwhelming, not sure if it has "simple" mastered.
- psychotik 14y agoThey likely did this on Android because it's the easiest platform to developer such a product. On iOS and WP, background apps are severely limited so it makes sense why Android is only platform that gets this.
- dfc 14y agoThere is no reason to say "likely," the article comes out and says that android was the easy platform: "Shira Weinberg, the team’s Program Manager, explained that the less strict security model of the Android platform is well suited for deploying early stage technology previews." I am not a mobile developer so when I read the statement I was not sure if it was an underhanded slap at andriod or a valid assessment of mobile platforms. Can anyone comment?
- psychotik 14y agoI think the security thing is BS. It's the ability to run arbitrary background services on Android versus strictly limited background tasks on other platforms that matters here.
- abraham 14y ago_less strict_ does not mean insecure. iOS for example has very strict rules about when apps can run, how long they can run, and the resources they use. Everything is a tradeoff and in general Android leans in the direction of power and freedom.
- bad_alloc 14y agoIn some cases this might backfire horribly. Imagine some guy sets his phone up to send an SMS to his spouse when he is held up at work. Imagine he also lets the phone send his location, because he travels a lot at work. Result: "X will be late today, he is currently at [coordinates of his secretary's house]". Don't get me wrong, this feature is awesome but when combined with naivity the device can do things that are equally naive.
- supernooneo 14y agoThis article is bizarre. Why is written in such a strange way? "your favorite Redmond techno-giant is sitting on a horse" What the fuck does that mean?
- jonnymkramer 14y agoIt is a reference to the Old Spice adverts which where a viral marketing sensation a few months ago.
- alanh 14y ago> a few months ago February 2012, actually. Wow.
- ori_b 14y agoIt's a not entirely fitting reference to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owGykVbfgUE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owGykVbfgUE
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- pragmatic 14y agoIt's blog smack. These blogs produce so much spammy content they have to vary it up with "witty" banter. That might be a comment on the type of people who read and subscribe to techcrunch now.
- nphrk 14y agoI guess you haven't seen the Old Spice commercial [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owGykVbfgUE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owGykVbfgUE ].
- grayrest 14y agoI'd like an easy interface to events around the phone being at rest (no accelerometer input). For the rest state: I assume that most people have their phone by their beds at night. I have a locale rule that puts my phone into airplane mode during the hours I'm normally asleep. This is much more easily/accurately expressed as "phone at rest for 15m". Similarly, I'd like to sync news when I pick up the phone to leave in the morning (I don't always unlock the phone when I do) so it can sync over wifi. I'd also like to monitor signal strength. I do so in Locale and shut down the 3g data connection if the signal strength is under 25%. This combined with the airplane mode at night and an undervolted kernel gets my (old, otherwise stock) Droid Incredible up to 3 days of battery life through normal use.
- saary 14y agoGreat scenarios! Writing these down to make sure we will be able to cover them.
- snotrockets 14y agoFrom my quick run with the app, what I find lacking isn't in the events, but in actions: currently, it mostly notifies you (or others) about events. It'd be more useful if it could also interact with the phone settings (for example, silence the phone at certain locations, &c). Currently, this could be worked around by having an event launch SL4A that would run another script doing it; but this forces you to maintain a separate script for the desired action, instead of doing it at the same place.
- sk55 14y agoI use Juice Defender (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.latedroid.juicedefender&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.latedroid....) for those scenarios
- trentmb 14y ago"up to 3 days of battery life through normal use." I use to be able to get weeks of use from a single charge of my old Motorola Razr.
- tomjen3 14y agoThere is an already existing program that allows you to do pretty much the same thing, I have had it forever. The app is called Tasker (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.dinglisch.android.taskerm https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.dinglisch....) works like a charm and can be programmed right on the phone.
- exhilaration 14y agoThe Android Reddit community loves tasker - I'm always impressed by the examples (http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/s2hrj/randroid_what_are_you_doing_with_tasker_ill_go/ http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/s2hrj/randroid_what...) and there's a whole Tasker community on Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/tasker http://www.reddit.com/r/tasker
- kevingadd 14y agoThe biggest problem with Tasker/Locale is that they're missing all the verbs you want and have really tragic consequences for performance and battery life. onX claims to offer verbs like 'when i'm in the car' or 'when i'm walking'; Tasker/Locale offer verbs like 'is there a wifi network named X nearby' or 'is bluetooth on'. I spent money on Locale to try and solve these kinds of problems on my Android phone and regretted it.
- dorian-graph 14y agoThere's also Llama (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kebab.Llama&feature https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kebab.Llam...) which has been known as an 'easier' one to use than Tasker. I've tried both [and bought Tasker] and at the moment use Llama though I'm going to give on{x} a go now.
- nodata 14y agoTasker is great, but the UI is a disaster.
- confickerrrrrrr 14y agoWow! Thank you, MicroSoft Israel! I can't wait to see the Stuxnet/Flame/Duqu plug-in that ties into this incredibly useful app!
- seclorum 14y agoYour sarcasm is warranted, in my opinion. I trust this on my phone about as much as I .. well .. trust .. my Android-controlled .. Googleplex'ing .. info-companion reporting agent .. Point is: yeah, your phone is spying on you. Of course "Microsoft Israel" wants you to automatically data-enter your daily activities into their massive connected network.
- JoshMock 14y agoI'll be 100% behind this project when it has as much control over a device as Tasker does. Recipes in JavaScript and not having to "program" on the device itself are exactly the kinds of things I wish Tasker could do. The modeOfTransport monitor is pretty attractive too. Beyond all that, I'm curious about on{X}'s battery usage. That's a huge selling point for always-on processes like this.
- styluss 14y agoisn't this like http://ifttt.com/ http://ifttt.com/
- ricardobeat 14y agoYes, plus all the events/data available in a smartphone. I wonder if IFTTT has something alike in the works.
- spinchange 14y agoI would love to be able to log things to a calendar like arrival and departure from a given location.
- MitziMoto 14y agoThis is really cool. Just set up a message to my wife when I leave work. "I'm heading home from work. Based on traffic data, it should take me XX minutes to travel XX miles". Took about 10 minutes to write thanks to some good examples in the documentation. Looking forward to watching this evolve. Should be extremely powerful with the right set of triggers and hardware integration.
- exhilaration 14y agoThat's a pretty useful example, can you share the code?
- eminkel 14y agoThis looks very promising. Like others have noted, even on the Play Store they are getting battered with negative reviews because of Facebook only authentication. +1 for another authentication type.
- nicholassmith 14y agoThis looks really interesting. And yes, there's other options on Android to do it, but Microsoft looks like they've taken a different focus on it. I do wonder at the 'less strict security model' part though. I'd think more 'less strict process model' would be a bit more accurate as it's a processing issue, not so much security issue.
- Wrap 14y agoStuff that has to do with Israel, Microsoft and vulnerable internet systems doesn't really go well with titles like "Coolest Thing to Happen"
- jff 14y agoIs anyone else able to access the blog or forums? I'm getting a database error.
- fidz 14y agoWhat's different with tasker for android?
- ch0wn 14y agoYou can script it with JavaScript from the browser.
- mark_l_watson 14y agoGreat irony but it makes sense that a small agile Microsoft development team could experiment faster on the nicely hack able Android platform.
- __alexs 14y agoLlama does some of this sort of thing already. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kebab.Llama&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kebab.Llam...
- papalalu 14y agono bluetooth.. also "back" doesn't seem to work, i have to go home/close manually
- WickyNilliams 14y agoI've yet to sign up to the service (until an alternative means of authentication is available), so I'm not sure if it's an obvious question but I'm curious about the metadata required to render a script as a recipe. Is this inferred from the script itself or is it manually input at some stage in the script's creation? I'm referring to this type of thing, where the bracketed words are treated as parameters: "Launch the [music] app when I am [walking]" Also, are these parameters bound to the script at runtime or is a new script generated for each variant?