The Intent
class is appropriately named. It is a class that demonstrates the Intent of an Activity from our app. It makes clear Intent and it also facilitates it.
All our apps so far have had just one Activity, but most Android apps are comprised of more than one.
In perhaps its most common use, an Intent
object allows us to switch between activities. But, of course, activities are classes. So, what happens to their data when we switch between them? Intents handle this problem for us, as well, by allowing us to pass data between activities.
Intents aren't just about wiring up the activities of our app. They also make it possible to interact with other apps. For example, we could provide a link in our app for the user to send e-mail, make a phone call, interact with social media, and open a web page in a browser and have the e-mail, dialer, browser, or relevant social media app do all the work.
There aren't enough pages to really dig deep into interacting with other apps, and we...