Custom URL schemes are the de facto way to launch other apps on iOS and Android ecosystems. Today, while reading about the dict: url scheme, I assumed it was a custom url scheme for the default dictionary app on iOS.
But I was wrong:
The (informal) standard was published in 1997 but has kept a relatively low profile since then. You can understand why it was invented – in an age of low-size disk drives and expensive software, looking up data over a dedicated protocol seems like a nifty idea.
http:, ftp:, and … dict:? — Terence Eden
It now makes sense. This was created in an era where protocols dominated the internet. IRC, SMTP, POP3, HTTP, FTP. Nowadays, it’s all about startups with their own internal protocol that moves too fast, for any standardization to happen. Even big names like Google and Facebook care less about open protocols than they used to.
It’s clear that we need more open-source efforts and funding.