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Android’s (quiet) killer feature

Android’s sharing capability, known to developers as a form of “intent,” is about more than merely sharing in the social-oriented sense of the word. It’s a way for you to quickly and easily pass data between applications — anything from a Web page to a chunk of text or even an image.

The most important part about Android’s sharing system? Any application can take advantage of it; all a developer has to do is declare his program capable of receiving data, and boom: It’ll show up throughout the OS as a place to which data can be shared. That’s a sharp contrast to the setup on certain other (ahem) more restrictive mobile platforms, and the resulting difference in usability is enormous.

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