Comments on: Microsoft Creates On{X} App For Android, Wants to Automate Your Life

By: Andy Ross

Andy Ross — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 14:19:00 +0000

What people seem to be missing (and if they stopped balking at the Facebook requirement and actually played with the darn thing) is that all these ‘recipes’ are written in JavaScript, something I don’t remember Tasker having the ability to do. Sooo, for anyone who knows how to spin some interesting ‘script, this lets you spin it for automation on your phone. Have fun. Geez.

By: Ted Pavlic

Ted Pavlic — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 04:50:00 +0000

Even Kellex says above in the post, “The only catch seems to be that you will need to write your own ‘rules’ for the app which requires a bit of coding… For those not into learning to write some simple code, there is a
community forum that we are assuming will be a way for users to share
their different works.” Also, as described above and elsewhere, you do all of this coding on a remote interface. The generated rules are then transmitted to your phone. You don’t actually generate them on your phone.

As Microsoft has said, this project was just meant to be a prototype for something they actually intended for Windows Phone (which might have a better interface that lets you do things without the coding-by-remote). So I don’t really think you could count this as production quality. Support for it will probably be dropped pretty quickly once the dev team starts working full time on the Windows Phone version.

By: r0lct

r0lct — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 21:51:00 +0000

I was assuming if kellex bothered to review it had a good interface. If it doesn’t that’s a waste of time

By: Ted Pavlic

Ted Pavlic — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 20:37:00 +0000

I think it’s *HILARIOUS* that Microsoft came up with an automation idea and had to prototype it in Android because it was too hard to get them to figure out how to do it in Windows Phone first…

(and I don’t think Android’s model is so “relaxed” to be any worse than whatever the Windows model is. Android’s got sandboxing out the wazoo. I think the Windows dev environment must just be a bear. Good luck selling that to app developers! (I guess MS is OK being the only app developer… It’s like .NET, but small))

By: Ted Pavlic

Ted Pavlic — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 20:35:00 +0000

Just felt like it needed an ack. That’s all.

By: Ted Pavlic

Ted Pavlic — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 20:34:00 +0000

Yes, and the On{X} JavaScript interface will be a big hit with non-tech people. :-p

By: Mei

Mei — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 19:31:00 +0000

Why does it require Facebook login? =.=

I guess there is still ‘Tasker’ or as some mentioned ‘Remember the Milk’.

By: nalpakj

nalpakj — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 16:17:00 +0000

This may provide a lot of the same functionality as sometihng like tasker but I think the key to this is the javascript side. I haven’t used Tasker much but I don’t think it intergrates a full scripting engine to determine how its tasks will be triggered or what even they will trigger. From what I’m reading and seeing, onx lets you write JavaScript to take total control of both the event and the task to perform.

By: sahilm

sahilm — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 16:11:00 +0000

Ifttt isn’t an app. It’s an online service that does (using an online interface) tasks like On{x} does.

By: SavageJeep

SavageJeep — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 15:09:00 +0000

What is this app? I couldn’t find it in the Market.

By: Sean Fee

Sean Fee — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 13:23:00 +0000

is this a mobile knockoff of IFTTT?

By: ABitterBuffalo

ABitterBuffalo — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 13:16:00 +0000

Already use this app = AutomateIt. Use it for setting the media volume when turning on Spotify, turning on GPS when opening Maps, turning pff GPS when closing Maps, etc. And I know Tasker does all this too… what is Microsoft up to?

By: Frank

Frank — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 12:58:00 +0000

I set it up to load spotify when I was driving and it decided the just open it every 15 minutes. So much for their existing recipes

By: RW-1

RW-1 — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 10:05:00 +0000

Tasker – UI maight be easier here, however Takser does more than this does.

By: Timothy McGovern

Timothy McGovern — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 06:32:00 +0000

I just made recipe called “poor me another beer when I’m done with this one”. I hope it works. That would save me a lot of time.