The general idea of creating overlays for actions that take awhile to complete should really be integrated into the system itself. It's a really good idea that the desktop gets around by allowing multiple windows at once. On a phone with only 1 window, it's a really obvious solution that surprisingly hasn't been used much before.<p>I think the origin of the idea is probably Facebook's Android app where contacts are little icons floating on your screen. That use case was so-so and only really useful if you were messaging one or two people constantly. This takes that idea a step further - but it could be taken even further by making all asynchronous actions use the system by default. Maybe in Android 5? A good first step would be to generalize this into an easy to use library that app devs can include without fuss. Maybe if I get some time next week...
OK, this is completely and absolutely inspired. Brilliant, especially the redirect handling.<p>The design needs a bit of polish, but the core concept is just so damn good it's blatantly going to be copied.
This is one of those ideas that seem so obvious in hindsight. Waiting for a web page to load on mobile is one of the most annoying things to do on a smart phone - much more so than on desktop because of variable network conditions.
I really like the idea of apps that overlay data and interact with the currently focused apps. Over at blekko we have incorporated a similar technique within two of our Android apps. We wanted to add functionality to the Android system that we felt was missing, so I developed an overlay search box that can be used from any app in the system. It takes some coding tricks, but the results are very useful.<p>The apps are :<p>izik - our tablet/mobile friendly search engine<p><a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.izik.izik" rel="nofollow">https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.izik.izik</a><p>rockzi - a discovery app that lets you browser or search within topics.<p><a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rockzi.rockzi" rel="nofollow">https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rockzi.roc...</a><p>Video explaining Rockzi:<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cpq6G1o7pmM" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cpq6G1o7pmM</a>
This is a brilliant idea, and I can't wait to use it.<p>Quick question for chris_lacy:<p>Sometimes I open links on my phone to read them on the subway when I'm offline. However, Android Chrome often decides that the 3 tabs I opened yesterday are too much for it to handle and throws them away. I try to open them on the train, it shows me a greyed screenshot of the page and a "loading" bar, then replaces the page with "You are offline." Then I scream inside my head, "No shit! That's why I opened them earlier!"<p>Will Link Bubble have the same problem? If so, would it be hard to address, or worth it for most users?<p>Edit: Also, if someone is going to link me an offline article reader, that's okay and maybe appreciated, but understand that I know those are out there and don't think my browser should be throwing loaded websites away.
This is incredible. This accomplishes exactly the way we browse on desktops: Open links in new tabs and switch to them when they're loaded, and then close them one by one to finally return to the original page. I remember thinking of how to solve this before but didn't come up with a good solution.
I wish Android had more granular default app settings. I'd love to use Link Bubble for opening links in the twitter app, but I'm not ready to give up Chrome as the default browser for everything else. One option is to not set a default at all, but then I have to click through this[1] all time, which isn't exactly smooth.<p>[1]: <a href="http://i.imgur.com/HrGadaj.png" rel="nofollow">http://i.imgur.com/HrGadaj.png</a>
This is great, Chris! I bought it right away after playing with it for a few minutes.<p>Just a few questions/suggestions:<p>1. It would be good to highlight in the tutorial that the free version only works for links from a single app (usually Chrome). I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out how it worked - and when it didn't - before I found the correct setting. Perhaps I missed something?<p>2. Is there a way to close an individual bubble in a group?<p>3. Is there a way to move a bubble into a new group?<p>4. The contrast on the number indicator could be much higher; in any sort of outdoor setting it is completely unreadable. Would be great to just use white on black.<p>Cool app; keep going!
Presuming this is closed source? Although it looks like a neat concept, it would be a more attractive option if I knew something that was dealing with my browsing history was open source.
Good stuff Chris Lacy, testing now on 2G on my train commute to work. I hope that, in addition to rounding up a few dollars, this opens doors for you.<p>Any way for you to use Chromium as the engine instead of stock 4.4? Regarding the Apple approach as you referred to limiting user options to cut down on clutter, while that has its merits, I think your target audience with an app like this has a higher concentration of nerds than usual, so maybe reconsider.
On the stock android browser (4.2.2), holding a link opens a context menu, within which you can choose to open it in a background tab. There's a settings options to not switch to that tab yet (under <i>Advanced</i>).<p>Also, a setting to preload links in the background (very appropriately under <i>Bandwidth Management</i>).
I always used to open a link on Chrome, switch to the previous app, keep the page loading and then after a few seconds I would open Chrome and see the fully loaded page - however this is a more elegant solution than my "hack".<p>Installed and already using it.
One of the most useful apps I've purchased in a while as I'm constantly clicking on Links from Twitter, HN App, Facebook and this just makes the whole process more desktop"ish".
This is amazing! Now I am actually starting to notice how much I have to wait when I click on a link from apps. Save to pocket, etc is a nice feature too.
Used it once and loved it. Upgraded to pro straight away :) This is going to make Reddit is Fun a lot easier to use.<p>When is this coming to tablets, Chris?