Digital-News on Scoop.it today

Now that's an unexpected combination of two technologies... It has a proof-of-concept feel to it but these why-not wanderings really get you thinking. Seriously - read this article and see how long it takes for you to be inspired.

One ironic benefit of having customers is it helps you to appreciate your own product. IntuiFace is fairly boundless so we often see experiences with some subtle design or implementation flourish that we just never thought of. "We can do that? Awesome!"

We are very excited to observer where IntuiFace users will take the interface concept (http://support.intuilab.com/kb/interface-assets-new-in-40/interface-asset-general-concepts). Typically associated with accessing data and media in the cloud, a variant of our interface concept can also be used to create integrations with input devices. For example, technically speaking, IntuiFace could support voice activation today. Or a 3D printer. Or both!

What will you think of next?

One of the most ominous expressions I hear in talking with prospects is "I just need something simple." In my experience,  there is an inverse relationship between perceived complexity on the part of the customer and actual complexity in terms of our software. Having an interactive Web browser still doesn't fail to thrill an IntuiFace user. "Wait! We can browse the Web?!?" But then we'll be asked, "That's awesome! Now, tell me about the search functions you supply for identifying customer information in our backoffice..." Well I won't even finish that sentence.

IntuiFace can't be in the business of creating prepackaged business logic. There are infinite varieties and even subtle conceptual differences could have a huge impact on the underlying code. It would be crazy for us to even try. However, we get that today's modern experiences may very well need to access external business logic to process user input and/or return updated information.

To solve this disconnect - people need access to business services while IntuiLab can't be in the business of building them - we created the "interface" concept. An "interface" acts as a bridge between your IntuiFace experience and external business logic. Any REST-based or C# DLL-based business logic can be called. (We also support Excel using the same concept.) How? By using public APIs exposed by those services. For more information, see http://bit.ly/15fqyPI

In the spirit of this scooped article, you now have another reason why APIs are important!