RE: Contacts API and storage awareness (Re: ACTION-54)

Anselm,
As a service provider, we are very aware of the device switching behavior. With the prevalence of device upgrade plans and family plans, it has become much more common for users to switch devices, even several times a month, more than once in a week. We are also finding it more common to serve users with more than one service account, who will want their services to be consistently delivered across the devices they use.

An online addressbook could be a "right choice", but that is something the user should choose, and there needs to be options in case such a choice does not meet the security requirements of the user. One of the uses cases I mentioned addressed the assumption that the user wants to have higher security for the contacts, thus use the SIM as the sole database host.

Thanks, 
Bryan Sullivan | AT&T


-----Original Message-----
From: Anselm R Garbe [mailto:garbeam@gmail.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, March 03, 2010 6:28 AM
To: SULLIVAN, BRYAN L (ATTCINW)
Cc: Dominique Hazael-Massieux; W3C Device APIs and Policy WG
Subject: Re: Contacts API and storage awareness (Re: ACTION-54)

On 3 March 2010 14:19, SULLIVAN, BRYAN L (ATTCINW) <BS3131@att.com> wrote:
> Putting this at the OS/browser level means that the webapp can't be sure of the actual handling in any specific device. Thus when Bob or Alice switch devices, they have to go through a process of configuration checking, and it's possible that the other device won't support such an underlying control. Having this info visible and controllable by the webapp means that no matter what device they use, the same user experience is achievable since this is only dependent upon the webapp user preferences.

In my personal opinion I think it is less likely that a webapp will
get it "right" than some implementation at the OS/browser level. Also
I wouldn't bother too much with the device switching argument, which
usually only happens every 18 months or so. If contacts should be
stored in a device-independent way, then some online addressbook would
be the right choice imho.

Cheers,
Anselm

Received on Wednesday, 3 March 2010 15:10:35 UTC