Re: add-on development ease:
AnkiMobile needs better extensibility on iOS – and I have the solution for you, something I’m certain is not already on your radar.
The URL scheme approach is limited and obtrusive (requiring flipping back and forth between apps). Other apps are unable to provide nice user experiences for mining (such as not being able to tell whether a card already exists before a user tries to create one).
So for a more generalizable solution to this…
Please consider my ExtensionKit proposal: Suggestion: ExtensionKit as next gen replacement for URL schemes Do not take for granted that your team will figure this out independently by taking a top-down approach to evaluating extensibility improvements - this iOS capability is not well known, few apps use it, and many teams are completely unaware of its existence. But it’s tremendously powerful as it allows direct programmatic access from 3rd party apps. No other such solution exists on iOS! (Except for opening up your server API for public use, which would also be interesting but expensive and would not work while offline.)
dae welcomed a prototype to integrate this functionality, but I didn’t get around to providing it. I’d be happy to do so if there’s still interest from the new team though.
Now what interface you provide to Anki data via ExtensionKit is up for discussion. One approach would be to provide the same AnkiConnect interface via ExtensionKit so apps have a single API for interacting with AnkiMobile and Anki desktop. Whatever is decided upon here could be done in the open source Rust codebase though. The only iOS-specific work needed is the ExtensionKit frontend to exposing a Rust-backed interface that the community can evolve.
(For context, I’m the developer behind Manabi Reader, a popular iOS/macOS app for Japanese immersion learning. A lot of my users use the AnkiMobile and AnkiConnect integrations for mining.)
I understand this reply may look like something too in the weeds, a random feature suggestion post that I’m promoting. But please understand that it concerns high level strategy for the future of the iOS platform and unlocks huge potential for the areas of improvement you mentioned in your post. Thank you for considering!