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From: AES on 4 Jul 2010 10:35 In article <yob39vzesl8.fsf(a)panix2.panix.com>, BreadWithSpam(a)fractious.net wrote: > Tim Streater <timstreater(a)waitrose.com> writes: > > BreadWithSpam(a)fractious.net wrote: > > > > Again, you don't have a filesystem (well, you do, but you don't have > > > access to it) on your iOS machine. The OS doesn't allow users or > > > their apps to have general access to a common filesystem. Each > > > app has its own private area of the filesystem. > > > > Mmmmm, so that means I have to organise myself my app. If I have a > > project that uses files from several different apps, that presumably > > means I can't group them together. Is that right? > > On the iPad alone, absolutely. Which is why, if you're interested > in keeping your files organized as you like, you need a different > solution. > > I recommended elsewhere that one use Dropbox. Then organize your > files as you like within your Dropbox on your desktop machine - > NOT on the iPad. > > The primary storage for those files will be your desktop machine, > mirrored on Dropbox's servers -- in exactly the hierarchical > structure you want. > > Then, from your iPad's Dropbox app, you may find and *read* all > those files as you like, via navigating Dropbox. > > When you want to edit, however, or if you want to read with a > more specialized app, you'll have to have Dropbox send the file > to the other app and the other app will then have its own new > copy of the file to do with what you like - and the new copy > will live within the other app's filespace. And all this complexity, all these additional components, like these "Dropbox servers" (wherever the hell they are, and whoever it is that provides them), and having to learn this new interface, with multiple copies of your files being created ad running around and getting mixed up and maybe lost, and just generally all this excess overhead -- all this is, somehow, an _improvement_ on the plain old Finder, file system, and apps approach that Macs (and most every other personal computer) have used for a quarter century now????
From: Tom Stiller on 4 Jul 2010 10:51 In article <siegman-5DDDE0.07351104072010(a)bmedcfsc-srv02.tufts.ad.tufts.edu>, AES <siegman(a)stanford.edu> wrote: > In article <yob39vzesl8.fsf(a)panix2.panix.com>, > BreadWithSpam(a)fractious.net wrote: > > > Tim Streater <timstreater(a)waitrose.com> writes: > > > BreadWithSpam(a)fractious.net wrote: > > > > > > Again, you don't have a filesystem (well, you do, but you don't have > > > > access to it) on your iOS machine. The OS doesn't allow users or > > > > their apps to have general access to a common filesystem. Each > > > > app has its own private area of the filesystem. > > > > > > Mmmmm, so that means I have to organise myself my app. If I have a > > > project that uses files from several different apps, that presumably > > > means I can't group them together. Is that right? > > > > On the iPad alone, absolutely. Which is why, if you're interested > > in keeping your files organized as you like, you need a different > > solution. > > > > I recommended elsewhere that one use Dropbox. Then organize your > > files as you like within your Dropbox on your desktop machine - > > NOT on the iPad. > > > > The primary storage for those files will be your desktop machine, > > mirrored on Dropbox's servers -- in exactly the hierarchical > > structure you want. > > > > Then, from your iPad's Dropbox app, you may find and *read* all > > those files as you like, via navigating Dropbox. > > > > When you want to edit, however, or if you want to read with a > > more specialized app, you'll have to have Dropbox send the file > > to the other app and the other app will then have its own new > > copy of the file to do with what you like - and the new copy > > will live within the other app's filespace. > > And all this complexity, all these additional components, like these > "Dropbox servers" (wherever the hell they are, and whoever it is that > provides them), and having to learn this new interface, with multiple > copies of your files being created ad running around and getting mixed > up and maybe lost, and just generally all this excess overhead -- all > this is, somehow, an _improvement_ on the plain old Finder, file system, > and apps approach that Macs (and most every other personal computer) > have used for a quarter century now???? Consider the possibility that, cool as it may be, the iPad is not the right device for you and the way you work. It might be possible for Apple to modify the device and/or its soft/firmware to satisfy your needs but it's not clear that such modification would be viewed as beneficial to the target customer base. -- Tom Stiller PGP fingerprint = 5108 DDB2 9761 EDE5 E7E3 7BDA 71ED 6496 99C0 C7CF
From: Jochem Huhmann on 4 Jul 2010 13:01
AES <siegman(a)stanford.edu> writes: > In article <yobaaq9efc1.fsf(a)panix2.panix.com>, > BreadWithSpam(a)fractious.net wrote: > >> >> Again, you don't have a filesystem (well, you do, but you don't have >> access to it) on your iOS machine. The OS doesn't allow users or >> their apps to have general access to a common filesystem. Each >> app has its own private area of the filesystem. >> > > And that seems to be the crux of this whole iPad situation. > > If anyone wants to expound on why this is either a _good_ thing or a > _necessary_ thing, well, I'll read those expositions. But it will be a > very, very, very difficult sell. Obviously it doesn't affect how the thing sells ;-) I think having the file system of the iPad exposed via USB is as bad an idea as what Apple does right now. Sandboxing apps and documents is a good thing for an appliance. On the other hand I think Apple could (and maybe will) add some features to ease that pain later. They could construct a virtual file system from all documents in all apps and expose that via USB, for example. This way you could easily copy files on and off the thing and still no app and no user had a chance to mess around with other files and folders on the iPad. Look at this: http://www.androidtapp.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/Astro-File-Manager.jpg Would you like to dig around in such a mess to find a document on the iPad? Jochem -- "A designer knows he has arrived at perfection not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery |