I built an iOS app that lets you point your phone at a paper invite or screenshot, review the parsed details, and drop the event straight into your calendar, so you can capture meetings in seconds instead of typing.
Comments
berkes•2mo ago
It saddens me that we're basically abandoning standards and protocols for such tasks.
I think it makes sense to just screenshot an email, or make a photo of it and have AI extract semantics from it.
But a simple ical file could do this far easier. Or an improved ical.
If email clients recognize and handle them better. If calendar apps handle them smoother and cleaner esp on desktop and web. If browsers handle and forward them to calendar webapps. If chat apps like WhatsApp or signal handle them natively. If service providers like a delivery company or a ticketing agency attach them consistently Etcetc
Now we are in a mess that within closed ecosystems, such standards and protocols work seamless. Within outlook, or gsuite it works. But cross their walls, and it falls apart. I'm pretty sure that's intentional by these tech giants to create artificial moats and lock in customers.
arunavo4•2mo ago
Yea, thats so true but also like if you have a windows work laptop and iphone so difficult to get anything around easily.
berkes•2mo ago
Right!
But all the pieces are in place. A windows laptop can easily push messages to my phone, technically.
And through that, my mail-client could send a message to my phone "here's an ical, handle it in the appropriate app" if it finds ical info in the email.
Hell, my web-browser could recognize semantic markup like https://schema.org/Event to add a button or context menu "put in my calendar" if it finds an event.
Everything is in place, designed, discussed, finetuned, re-done, redone again.
and now abandoned because non of the big players have incentives to use and push this forward in their browsers (Google), OS (microsoft, Apple, Android), suites and so on, because that would increase interoperability and thus make it easier for users to switch to a competitor.
smyk1777•2mo ago
Great app, congratulations on the idea! Too bad I can't install it on Android.
berkes•2mo ago
I think it makes sense to just screenshot an email, or make a photo of it and have AI extract semantics from it.
But a simple ical file could do this far easier. Or an improved ical. If email clients recognize and handle them better. If calendar apps handle them smoother and cleaner esp on desktop and web. If browsers handle and forward them to calendar webapps. If chat apps like WhatsApp or signal handle them natively. If service providers like a delivery company or a ticketing agency attach them consistently Etcetc
Now we are in a mess that within closed ecosystems, such standards and protocols work seamless. Within outlook, or gsuite it works. But cross their walls, and it falls apart. I'm pretty sure that's intentional by these tech giants to create artificial moats and lock in customers.
arunavo4•2mo ago
berkes•2mo ago
But all the pieces are in place. A windows laptop can easily push messages to my phone, technically. And through that, my mail-client could send a message to my phone "here's an ical, handle it in the appropriate app" if it finds ical info in the email.
Hell, my web-browser could recognize semantic markup like https://schema.org/Event to add a button or context menu "put in my calendar" if it finds an event.
Everything is in place, designed, discussed, finetuned, re-done, redone again.
and now abandoned because non of the big players have incentives to use and push this forward in their browsers (Google), OS (microsoft, Apple, Android), suites and so on, because that would increase interoperability and thus make it easier for users to switch to a competitor.