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A paragraph about Intent concept

 
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Hi
In the book that I am reading there is a paragraph about teaching the Intent concept :

"" An intent generically defines an intention to do some work. Intents encapsulate several
concepts, so the best approach to understanding them is to see examples of their use.
You can use intents to perform the following tasks:
Broadcast a message.
Start a service.
Launch an activity.
Display a web page or a list of contacts.
Dial a phone number or answer a phone call.
Intents are not always initiated by your application—they’re also used by the system to
notify your application of specific events (such as the arrival of a text message).
Intents can be explicit or implicit. If you simply say that you want to display a URL, the
system decides what component will fulfill the intention. You can also provide specific
information about what should handle the intention. Intents loosely couple the action
and action handler
. ""

I completely understand the paragraph except the final portion that I underlined it .
What does that mean ???
Please explain it for me .
What is action and action handler ???
Thanks for your help
 
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Hi Peter,

Can you please list the source of the quote? It is important so folks know what the source material is (see: QuoteYourSources).

The action is what you want to do (open a web page, send a text message, list contacts, etc...) and the action handler is who does the action (what browser displays the web page, what application sends the text message, how the contacts are listed on screen). 'Loosely coupled' means the code intending to do the action doesn't need to know how action will be performed, they just know what action they want. The OS is free to substitute whatever it wants to execute that action, as long as the action is handled. For one user 'launch this web page' may be executed by Chrome, and for another user launch this web page' might be executed by Opera. This loose coupling makes the OS very flexible and is why an Android user can substitute a third party browser, or keyboard, or whatever, and we developers don't have to be aware of that substitution in order to deliver the user a consistent experience.
 
Peter Sorotokin
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Hi
Thanks Steve
Page 32 : Pro Android 4 : Apress publisher : March 2012
 
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