Why are the icons in the Android share menu ordered randomly?
Why are the icons in the Android share menu ordered randomly?
Seriously, I don't get it. It's so annoying, every time I want to share something I have to scroll to find the same App again and again. Is there a reason for this?
I think there are two issues at play. The first is that many apps don't use the native share sheet and instead surface their own shittier version, even some Google apps do it which is bizarre - it would be like an Apple app breaking iOS conventions.
The second issue is that most devices also try to be smart about the share sheet and reorder apps based on what they believe is your most likely behavior. So if every weekend when you share a Lemmy image you tend to do it via WhatsApp, the next time you open a Lemmy share sheet it's likely that WhatsApp will appear first. But once the algorithm starts considering recent notifications and contacts, like some devices do, things can get quite unpredictable.
I think I saw something about Google allowing greater customisation of the share sheet for apps, hopefully this pushes some apps to move to the native sheet instead of making their own one to add special sharing options.
Then again, YouTube has its own share sheet but it has zero added functionality to justify it, so who knows ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I see app developers abusing any freedoms they are given within the native share sheet in the same way that some of them use text under their icons different from their apps' names, messing things up further. Like (totally made up now but serves as an example) having a video player app called X that reads "View this video with X now" under their icon in the share sheet whenever you share a video file.
Yeah, the contacts I talk to the most are usually not even suggested, like WTH Google. If they didn't alter the order of the apps in the share menu, muscle memory would do a far better job than any weird algorythm at speeding up the process of sharing anything.