ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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Thomas Voß wrote on 10/03/14 12:36:
> 
> On Mon, Mar 10, 2014 at 1:13 PM, Matthew Paul Thomas
> 
> ...
>> That would result in you getting cut off a Skype call, for
>> example, when the person you're talking to gets you to check your
>> calendar. Or a recording app failing whenever you read the script
>> or the music that you're trying to record. Assuming that gets
>> fixed eventually, users would experience less churn if there was
>> a single design for returning to phone calls before it's fixed,
>> and returning to other recording apps after it's fixed.
> 
> I disagree here. We have spent a significant amount of time on our 
> lifecycle story and on establishing, implementing and supporting a 
> strict lifecycle policy on the phone. With that, I'm surprised by
> such a statement. I would have expected that our designs by now are
> aligned with such a fundamental platform decision.

Sorry, I'm not sure which part you disagree with.

Is it correct that if recording/listening apps can't run in the
background, then you would get cut off a Skype call, Google Hangout,
Yahoo Messenger call, WhatsApp Voip call, or any WebRTC call when you
switched to a different app?

Do you agree that Ubuntu Touch should be a platform on which ISVs like
those can make apps as useful as their apps on other platforms?

If so, do you agree that the current lifecycle model would need to be
only a first iteration, rather than a permanent restriction? Or is
there some other way around the problem?

Perhaps your only disagreement is with the principle of designing in a
forward-compatible way? That could be bad if we misled people into
thinking a feature is there when it isn't yet. But in this case all
we're talking about is *not* assuming that the built-in calls app is
the only one that will ever listen in the background. Making the
listening indication app-agnostic, so that other apps can use it later.

> At any rate: No matter if an application or a (trusted) helper is 
> accessing system services, I would think that we should put
> designs that visually surface any sort of background operation to
> users.

Agreed. Users should never need to know what a "trusted helper" is;
they should see the name of the app that is doing the recording/listening.

- -- 
mpt
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