Using Angular Http to load local files?

[NathanWalker]

Right now, doing this (assuming similar semantics that Image component uses for local src binding):

this.http.get(`~/assets/data.json`)
      .map((response: Response) => response.json())
      .subscribe((results: string[]) => {
        // never gets here
      });

Does not work.
Then only way I know to load a local file would be to use something like following:

let app = knownFolders.currentApp();
let localFile = app.getFile(`assets/data.json`);
localFile.readText().then((data) => {
  try {
    resolve(JSON.parse(data));
  } catch (err) {
    reject(err);         
  }
}, (err) => {
  reject(err);
}); 

That of course is not very intuitive to Angular devs.
Is there another way to do this using just Angular's Http?