So here’s another kick at the can at jumpstarting the use of application URL handlers for iPhone app IPC, as we’ve mentioned before — and this one’s looking pretty ambitious. The name is SwapKit, and the announcement thread is here:
SwapKit is a MIT-licensed library to allow locally installed iPhone apps to share data among themselves. It supplies facilities iPhone OS does not provide, including shared metadata on installed apps, binding applications to data types and app capabilities (similar to how apps in desktop OSes bind themselves to file types), and providing one-way and (planned) two-way communication to let apps collaborate and do more than any single one could ever hope to.
SwapKit requires no app to be installed except for your very own, or anything else from me except the code (and that’s completely free and infinitely forkable for your pleasure). And all of the above is done in a 100% App Store-friendly fashion.
In case it’s not completely clear why you’d bother with this, it’s to build an opt-in version of the other applications’ capabilities lists available on desktop OS X , like the “Open with:” list you can see in the Finder’s info windows for a document, essentially.
An end to hardcoding “What app would you like to use to open this link”/”What Twitter client do you want to use”/etc. preference items, since you can now see what SwapKit apps are there and fill the menu dynamically.
So hey, if you are writing an app that wants to play with others, throw support for SwapKit in!
JAN