[Interest] The Mobile Agenda?

[René Hansen]

Great points Jason. I'm definitely interested in this as well.


/René

On Sat, 4 Jan 2020 at 21:49, Jason H <jhihn at gmx.com> wrote:

> So it looks like the QtWS 2019 videos are up on YouTube.
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmwAeS_ojPA "Qt 6 will bring massive
> improvements to QML and 3D development"
>
> At time 53:40 Lars is asked a question about mobile, and answers "We will
> continue to support them. Was that the answer you were looking for?
> (giggles)" - Actually, no it is not.
> At 57:00 Lars takes another question about mobile, and responds with a
> hesitant "Um, yes..." and continues" We have a lot of ideas... want to make
> sure Qt is working nicely on mobile.. things have been moving quickly...
> have to catch up there".
> Actually the QA segment ended up being bookended by Mobile questions.
>
> Well I'm glad to hear Lars admit that there is catching up to do, but I
> take issue with the claim that things have been moving quickly. The
> majority of mobile features that I and others are requesting are not
> bleeding edge, it is basic things, like
> * NFC on iOS (Available iOS 11, September 19, 2017, 2+y)
> * Media keys (volume, play/pause, etc., Since before Qt 5.2)
> * Push Notifications (Since before Qt 5.2)
> * Display control (Since before Qt 5.2)
> * Battery Info (Since before Qt 5.2)
> * Vibration/haptics control (Since before Qt 5.2)
> * DeviceInfo (model, OS version, hardware enumeration, etc)
> * Biometric authentication
> * Datatype conversion (Java and ObjC to Qt types and back)
>
> Many of these are not that hard, the code is known and settled, I've
> posted code where I think it helps, but the issue is for every app I make,
> I have the friction of adding 8 of my own classes to every project... which
> is composed of bout 8 files, and the tome doctoring manifests and plists).
> The expense of these classes is over, but these classes that took me days
> to create and test in environments where I am not expert. I hack at native
> Objective C and Android, and those experiences are troubling. I don't mind
> for some really weird feature, but what is being asked for by me and the
> community is pretty basic stuff. Objective-C code examples are becoming
> rarer as Swift takes over.  The experience of using Eclipse or XCode is
> another problem itself, as the Qt integration is less than ideal. (Even
> ignoring having to use 2 IDEs to code.)
>
> Mobile (in general) really hasn't advanced in any way that Qt needs to
> react to, there's a lot of new biometrics stuff, but really we only need a
> way to integrate for authentication. (Fingerprint, FaceID, etc) Also the
> only thing I know Android has changed lately is the permission requests,
> but Qt already has a helper for that.
>
> A lot of these needs are tracked at:
> https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-74049 which was opened 11 months
> ago, but there has not been *any* activity, at least visibly.
>
> However I have had several mobile support issues serviced and closed, but
> I also have a commercial support agreement.
>
> If you are interested in my current code (that I recently refactored to be
> more granular than a monolithic catch-all shim that I had before) I can see
> about getting it shared to Qt, at least as inspiration (I don't use D-ptrs
> and am not subject to binary compatibility constraints). I think the most
> complicated bit on anyone's list is the Push Notifications, as the two
> platforms have different message structures.
>
> So my question to Lars is:
> Lars, can we get a better (in terms of: better stated, more attention,
> schedule clarity) commitment to mobile in 2020? I think with not a lot of
> effort we could get everything of what we are asking for, and then we can
> get out of your hair.
>
>
>
>
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