Use an intent from another Android application or use code?

I am writing an Android application that uses some functionality that has been published under the Apache 2.0 license. The functionality is available in 2 ways:

1. As java code
2. As an intent in an Android application.

Being the typical developer that I am, I don't want to make the user install a separate application so that they can use my own application - because it would definitely put me off using the application if I had to.

On the other hand, doing the work to get the application up and running using the Java code will take mu开发者_JAVA百科ch longer.

My questions are thus:

1. What are most developers doing now? Are they using intents from other apps?
2. Does it matter to the average consumer that they need to download a separate application to make it work?

In my application EmailAlbum, I first depended on the presence of OpenIntents OIFileManager on the user phone to pick a file on SDCard or chose a destination folder for exporting a generated file.

Later, I integrated my own version of the code of OIFileManager in my app's source code for several reasons:

• Depending on another app for basic (but essential) application features is like a suicide. If your app can't really live without the other app and this app is not installed on most devices, your app won't get used. Most people want apps that work on first start.
• Another app was on the market which was providing it's own (bad) implementation of the same intent and was making my app crash... users having it installed on their phone thought that was my app's fault.
• Providing a consistent UI was not possible.

I think using public Intents is great to allow people to chose from various applications to extend your applications features or to reuse the content generated by your application. BUT your application has to be able to live on its own, depending only on standard apps provided with ALL android devices (ie. not even depending on Google proprietary apps if you want your app to be able to be used on devices which have not been approved by Google, those which come without the Android Market or GMail).

Most developers are going to use a common intent (phone call, web browser, camera, etc.) to call an activity. If your app replaces one of these common intents, then you shouldn't have anything to worry about.

Developers do sometimes include intents to use other (non-common apps). One example that comes to my mind is OpenWatch that provides an API for other developers to build on. Of course, in this case, if you are using a bluetooth watch like this, then you most likely already have OpenWatch installed, therefore it isn't much of a bother to get another app that builds on top of it.

If you think people are going to use it, I'd say provide an API.

Might also want to take a look at here: http://www.openintents.org/en/

I think even google had an app at one time that depended on a third party package. At application startup the user was greeted with a dialogue that asked him to download said package. If he declined, the respective functionality was disabled.

But I'd only use that approach for tech savvy users, the regular joe will much likely be put off by it. If the functionality isn't crucial, just use it as an added bonus and leave it out otherwise.