As for bringing file sharing back to iPhone, it's not a must. iPhone was designed and build as essentially consuming device. Almost nothing is supposed to be produced on iPhone and then shared.
What are you talking about!? I expect to use it to produce/edit/share my iWork-Office documents in a HUGE way. I am hoping that, over time, it will allow for seamless reading from and writing to Office documents (right now, iWork is pretty good, but not perfect, in that regard), and hopefully, as apps get more numerous and varies, enable me to do serious statistical computations, data analysis and such.
If it was simply a 'consuming' device, it would be a failure. After all, we will need no more than a 'smart' TV for that.
...this is how I organized my files in the dark ages of MS-DOS, like early to mid 80s: a doc folder in each application's installation folder, simply because there was no such thing as a decent file open panel or Finder, and otherwise opening files would have required a lot of painful file system navigation.
With the advent of GUIs I was able to finally leave this brain-dead application based working style behind, and focus on the DATA, the PROJECTS, etc.
I don't work with applications, I work on PROJECTS and their DOCUMENTS. I then open a document, which as a SIDE EFFECT launches an application. Applications should disappear rather than becoming the center piece of a user's interaction with a computing device.
Further, documents should have an open format, and hence it should be possible to work on them with multiple applications. Grouping documents with a specific application is a huge step backwards.
Lastly, scrolling through documents DOES NOT SCALE. Have a few hundred Pages documents, and it'll become a PITA to find the proper one. After all, these are not photos, which are usually taken a few at a time, and which are easily recognized by a few, prominent features. These are text documents, that more or less all look the same. If they are strewn all into once place without decent categorization and organization, the mess is perfect in no time.
The more I look at the iPad, the more it reminds me of a modern edition of the original Mac, single-tasking, single-app paradigm, closed proprietary architecture etc. all included.
Maybe Jobs has to get fired, found a new NeXT and be forced to listen to customers again, until he creates an open version of the iPad, just like NeXT was an open version of the Mac.
Why is it, that excessive greed and lust for power always finds its way back into corporate leadership, even when you thought a company might have learned a few lessons from their recent past.
Or look at DRM. One might have thought the debate with DRM in iTunes music might have led somewhere, but no, DRM with iBooks and of course the AppStore apps is alive and kicking. Does Apple try to say it's OK to steal music, but not OK to steal books and apps?
Or alternatively, if the threat of music theft, compared to the advertising effect stolen songs have, is small enough to do away with DRM, then why does the same not hold true for books, apps, etc.?
Pretty pathetic.
I agree, part of your post is pretty pathetic.
Perhaps you could criticize what you think the product is, without going on a tirade.
... The more I look at the iPad, the more it reminds me of a modern edition of the original Mac, single-tasking, single-app paradigm, closed proprietary architecture etc. all included.
Lol, good reference. I guess many people on these boards will not agree with you as they are too nostalgic of the 80s )
I don't understand why people are opposed to what apple is doing.
Do you really believe the current file hierarchy of mac os x on a desktop would port well to the ipad? Why would I want to hunt around in finder ,trying to touch hundreds of little icons to preview which folder I should open. Sounds much easier to open pages and have all my files which could possibly be associated with that app right there.
What isvthis nonesense about the file being tied to the app? Sure, when I open any camera related app on my iPhone, all my pics are there, yet when I delete a camera app, all my photos don't disappear.
It's not like you'll try to open something in brushes and this error message will pop up saying the photo is already associated with facebook and cannot open. There will be one spot for all my photos, one for all my .mov, one for .doc etc.
As someone who regularly helps people with their macs, in all the years I've been doing it, at least 90% of the issues revolve around people not understanding file structures. In fact, for all of you botching this is a bad idea, I bet a good portion of you have duplicate files laying around because if the confusion between downloads for the system, downloads for the user, applications for the system and applications for the user. Hell, TUAW, a blog for apple nerds, regularly has to post articles explaining how you don't want to open files from the download stack/folder because it will reinstall them.
In other words, judging by the comments, most of the people complaining about this system are so out of the loop of file structures that your complaints don't even make sense, ie the sandboxing of documents which is absolutely not at all described in this article. If you don't see how this is a natural evolution of file structure, you prolly don't know what your talking about and this setup is specifically for people like you.
Apple is dramatically rethinking how applications organize their documents on iPad, leaving behind the jumbled file system and making file access between the iPad and desktop computers seamless.
That's the big problem now, isn't it? Applications should not be organizing, users should be organizing. Don't tell me what to do.
The main reason I left Windows so many years ago was because I grew weary of the damn computer telling me how I should be computing.
If the iPad didn't have to rely on another computer, if it could stand on it's own, then it would be a "revolutionary" device indeed, rather than just a larger Touch with better software.
But attaching documents to their applications is pathetic at best. One of the single most convenient elements of a computer is having a folder that contains all the data that might be included in some project - such as a brochure, where an Excel spreadsheet you received from your engineering group holds some data; an Excel spreadsheet from the finance team holds other information; copies of all the individual images used in the brochure; and, snippets of email, quotes, and other key data sources used in the body of the document.
Using the "revolutionary" file mismanagement system of the iPad, I now must remember the exact file name of each image in every damn project ever done, so I can locate it in the fabulous "media browser." Talk about a time sink. Spreadsheets are attached to email (not even it's actual application!) which may or may not still exist in Mail over time; everything else is scattered about. Who can remember all this crap? I thought that's what computers were for, to make this stuff easier, not harder.
AppleInsider's column suggests that the lowest level of users cannot fathom the hierarchical file system of a computer. This is idiotic at best. These are Apple's new customer targets? Well, they're going to need to re-design iTunes then, that's for sure.
The underlying concern - even more important than making the iPad difficult if not impossible for project work - is having an inanimate object tell me how I'm going to work, what I'm going to do, and exactly where I'm going to store my stuff.
Revolutionary, indeed. It's like that hammer never did get thrown.
Consider this is the beginning of what is likely to change a lot over time. iPad Evolution Will Have To Let Multiple File Types Share Common Space. Video content creation will surely be a high priority. I've got a hunch the Final Cut group is working on an iPad version of FCP for future release next year.
FCP n the Ipad? I don't really see how that would be useful. Unless the footage was h264 encoded and it didn't require any transcoding for I/O, the footage would choke it even if it were only SD DV.
You might see an Imovie for the tablet, but again it will be designed for h264 capture systems like the flip or the iphone camera and that's about it. Besides there are already several solid editors for the "I" devices. No need for apple to do a thing.
Pro is not Apple's market with this device. Maybe in five or ten years, if touch evolves into larger, more powerful devices. but we're no where near that stage.
This thread is annoying and yet staggering at the same time, for people's inability to realise the difference between an iPad and a desktop computer.
Some stuff people would do well to realise:
Tablets with desktop OSs have been tried before and have failed - miserably.
Most people don't use file systems 'properly' - especially the people who would likely use the tablet. The reasons why this is the case are moot.
If you are a computer whizz, it won't be that hard for you to understand the new way of working and adapt accordingly.
All this talk of 'project folders' is madness. Due to the way this device is intrinsically linked to a 'real' computer, if you are using it to create content, you'll most likely create a document or two, then copy them to your desktop machine. The same reason also makes the whole 'what if I've got hundreds of documents to look through?' question a non point - you probably shouldn't have hundreds of documents on it.
This question of 'what happens when I delete this app or that app?' is pointless. We don't know the exact details of the file system. It might ask what you want to do with the documents contained in the app folder. It might not actually store files directly in those folders, but rather the abstraction makes it seem this way.
Basically, we don't know much about how things will work. It might be that the iPad becomes the most amazing content creation system ever, and outgrows the simplified filesystem, at which point the design might change.
Someone made the point earlier about how this is going back to the 80s in terms of complexity, and marking that down as a bad thing. It's likely that new models will emerge as the 'best way' of doing things as the new technology and ways of working change.
That's the big problem now, isn't it? Applications should not be organizing, users should be organizing. Don't tell me what to do.
The main reason I left Windows so many years ago was because I grew weary of the damn computer telling me how I should be computing.
If the iPad didn't have to rely on another computer, if it could stand on it's own, then it would be a "revolutionary" device indeed, rather than just a larger Touch with better software.
But attaching documents to their applications is pathetic at best. One of the single most convenient elements of a computer is having a folder that contains all the data that might be included in some project - such as a brochure, where an Excel spreadsheet you received from your engineering group holds some data; an Excel spreadsheet from the finance team holds other information; copies of all the individual images used in the brochure; and, snippets of email, quotes, and other key data sources used in the body of the document.
Using the "revolutionary" file mismanagement system of the iPad, I now must remember the exact file name of each image in every damn project ever done, so I can locate it in the fabulous "media browser." Talk about a time sink. Spreadsheets are attached to email (not even it's actual application!) which may or may not still exist in Mail over time; everything else is scattered about. Who can remember all this crap? I thought that's what computers were for, to make this stuff easier, not harder.
AppleInsider's column suggests that the lowest level of users cannot fathom the hierarchical file system of a computer. This is idiotic at best. These are Apple's new customer targets? Well, they're going to need to re-design iTunes then, that's for sure.
The underlying concern - even more important than making the iPad difficult if not impossible for project work - is having an inanimate object tell me how I'm going to work, what I'm going to do, and exactly where I'm going to store my stuff.
Revolutionary, indeed. It's like that hammer never did get thrown.
So you're angry and indignant that a product that hasn't been released, that you don't know very much about and which you're under no compulsion to buy is "telling you what to do"?
And you go further to dream up use scenarios that further enrage you, again without really knowing any particulars, and conclude that this all must mean Apple is making machines for stupid people.
Most of the people I support see the HD on the desktop, understand that as a "file receptacle" of some kind and throw stuff in there willy nilly (absolutely the wrong thing to do on a Mac). Most use the trash as a kind of "pile of forgotten stuff" (secondary receptacle), and most store pretty much every single thing they really want to hang onto, on the desktop itself.
And it's not just files systems. We just migrated email systems - the bulk of the migration was a few weeks ago. Now people are starting to come out of the woodwork complaining they can't find their contacts. Upon following up with a few users their contacts did indeed migrate - but the bulk of the contacts they used were in their recent contacts - the system generated list from when you first email someone!
We have had to go back and show people how on the old mail client they can move the contacts they want from their recent contacts to their contacts, and then re-migrate their contacts to the new system. Totally unanticipated because to techie's, it's logical - recent contacts and trash aren't permanent storage. But getting "normal people" to understand such concepts... It's why Apple is so successful - they focus on usability. Not for geeks, but "for the rest of us". I think it's also why despite being so derided in the technical press they are so successful in the real world.
Honestly, using a folder structure is no more complex than using a filing cabinet. Frankly, I think you're overplaying the complexity involved here.
It's not an issue of complexity, because you are right - it is no harder than a file cabinet.
It's a conceptual issue. I can't explain it, but I see it all the time. My own father - a very smart man. Self-made, very successful, financially well off, wrote technical reports for years on complex engineering projects - is even published. My parents built their own house, out of pocket, doing the vast majority of the work. Clearly these are people capable of logic, independent thought and organization.
But give them a computer and it's like that part of their brain switches off. Give them instructions and it's like there is this mental block. I ask them how is me giving you three things to do on a computer different then giving you a three part recipe to cook something? They have no problem following recipes to cook - but when it comes to technology they are baffled. I really do think it comes down to conceptualization and reference - they have a hard time "connecting the dots" internally. It's obvious. And I don't know what you can do to get around it.
And just when I think about things like the above, for a moment I will wonder what is looming on the horizon that will be the same for me that my kids think is trivial and I'm a dunce for not getting. I try to keep that thought as fleeting as possible
It's not an issue of complexity, because you are right - it is no harder than a file cabinet.
It's a conceptual issue. I can't explain it, but I see it all the time. My own father - a very smart man. Self-made, very successful, financially well off, wrote technical reports for years on complex engineering projects - is even published. My parents built their own house, out of pocket, doing the vast majority of the work. Clearly these are people capable of logic, independent thought and organization.
But give them a computer and it's like that part of their brain switches off. Give them instructions and it's like there is this mental block. I ask them how is me giving you three things to do on a computer different then giving you a three part recipe to cook something? They have no problem following recipes to cook - but when it comes to technology they are baffled. I really do think it comes down to conceptualization and reference - they have a hard time "connecting the dots" internally. It's obvious. And I don't know what you can do to get around it.
And just when I think about things like the above, for a moment I will wonder what is looming on the horizon that will be the same for me that my kids think is trivial and I'm a dunce for not getting. I try to keep that thought as fleeting as possible
Excellent post. I've elsewhere posted a semi-inflammatory rant about this strange world we've made, wherein perfectly normal people are belittled as being "stupid" for not having an affinity for the kind of abstract systems thinking computer operating systems represent.
And computer file systems are definitely not "no more difficult" than a physical filing cabinet, for the simple reason that it's not a real filing cabinet.
Abstract representations of things are not the same as the thing itself, do not engage the same parts of the brain, and do not involve a directly transferable set of skills. The statement "I take the paper and put in it the folder labeled 'important stuff'" is not the same as actually taking a piece of paper and putting it into an actual folder, and the system of symbols and codified actions that represent that process within a computer operating system aren't the same as either doing or saying that.
Now consider the actual level of abstraction that all these ostensibly trivially easy to use "actions" involve when using a computer, wherein one must bear in mind that this thing we're calling a "desktop" is somehow different from other "files" which appear in "windows", things get "saved" to "places" that we're not actually sure where they are, there is an uncertain, mutable relationship between "files" and "applications", and "hierarchies" may loop back on themselves.
None of that has fuck-all to do with the real world that evolutionary biology has so exquisitely equipped us to handle. It's the world of recursive math and rigid logic, with the merest scrim of "usability" pasted on, using a metaphor now 30 years old.
People who are conversant with these particular abstractions, who smirk and giggle and imagine that people who don't care to contort their thinking according to the dictates of computer science are "stupid", need to be slapped, hard, over and over again, until they shut the fuck up.
I couldn't be more sincere about this, the rise the IT personality as some kind of necessary evil is really, really depressing thing. If not for the unyielding complexity of the systems they smugly inhabit, we would have kicked them unconscious long ago, just on general principles.
Which is why it's so very interesting to see people with exactly that personality so strenuously attack the very idea of something like the iPad. My most fervent wish is that Apple's model takes off, and you assholes lose your one and only significant asset. At which point we rediscover the simple fact that obsessive compulsive hyper-left brained geeks are actually incredibly unpleasant and probably best shunned.
And judging by the complaints of recent Mobile Me customers, the experience has not changed.
For every vocal whiner on the internet there are millions like me who are quite happy with mobileme (and .Mac before).
Sofabutt copied the entire article just to complain about MobileMe and Cloud Computing, despite the article not being about that.It made no sense.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DocNo42
Quote:
Originally Posted by huntercr
ugh.... Apple really blew it on one thing for the iPad. No USB is nearly unforgivable. I should not need to have another computer to get my files.
It's 1990 - here's your floppy drive.
At least you didn't complain it's lacking a BluRay or DVD burner so I suppose that's something to be grateful for.
Huntercr Apparently doesn't understand that there is USB on all iDevices and that for the iPad there are ways to get connect cameras to the device to grab images. Makes sense to me that other file types will be allowed as well, but nothing to get upset over until we have a conformation.
Most of the people I support see the HD on the desktop, understand that as a "file receptacle" of some kind and throw stuff in there willy nilly (absolutely the wrong thing to do on a Mac). Most use the trash as a kind of "pile of forgotten stuff" (secondary receptacle), and most store pretty much every single thing they really want to hang onto, on the desktop itself.
I had an elderly user ask me where all her emails had gone. She said they'd disappeared. She showed me her outlook client and pointed out that the Inbox for the new emails was fine, but all her older mails that she'd stored in the trash had gone.
I expressed my concern, and (with humour) said the same thing happened to me a few weeks ago. On my regular desk I'd had all my sheets of paper that I was working with, and I had filed all the things I'd finished working with but might need later in the trash/bin under the desk. I came in one morning and they were gone!
She understood and actually had a bit of a laugh. Normally I would have explained rather than made a joke of it... and in the past with things like this the users get embarassed and say how stupid they are as a starting point, so this track actually seemed to be more effective in the short term AND she hasn't stored things in the trash since.
I had an elderly user ask me where all her emails had gone. She said they'd disappeared. She showed me her outlook client and pointed out that the Inbox for the new emails was fine, but all her older mails that she'd stored in the trash had gone.
I expressed my concern, and (with humour) said the same thing happened to me a few weeks ago. On my regular desk I'd had all my sheets of paper that I was working with, and I had filed all the things I'd finished working with but might need later in the trash/bin under the desk. I came in one morning and they were gone!
She understood and actually had a bit of a laugh. Normally I would have explained rather than made a joke of it... and in the past with things like this the users get embarassed and say how stupid they are as a starting point, so this track actually seemed to be more effective in the short term AND she hasn't stored things in the trash since.
...and people wonder why IT guys aren't all that popular.
This is where metadata could make this file system work. Tag one project's files with the project name.
Exactly!
For once, i think this is a fundamental change with a really positive result. Getting rid of folder/file structures is a big move but with so many benefits. It works well for iPhoto and Aperture, and i think it would work well for a whole system
Comments
Just wondering : sometimes I need my computer with me but don't want to have the hassle of lugging a 6 pounds computer with powerplug and so on.
If I need to work on text files and pictures on the move, is the iPad a nice lightweight solution for this ?
Text, yes. No photo editing yet. But I would be surprised if we didn't see something before too long.
As for bringing file sharing back to iPhone, it's not a must. iPhone was designed and build as essentially consuming device. Almost nothing is supposed to be produced on iPhone and then shared.
What are you talking about!? I expect to use it to produce/edit/share my iWork-Office documents in a HUGE way. I am hoping that, over time, it will allow for seamless reading from and writing to Office documents (right now, iWork is pretty good, but not perfect, in that regard), and hopefully, as apps get more numerous and varies, enable me to do serious statistical computations, data analysis and such.
If it was simply a 'consuming' device, it would be a failure. After all, we will need no more than a 'smart' TV for that.
...this is how I organized my files in the dark ages of MS-DOS, like early to mid 80s: a doc folder in each application's installation folder, simply because there was no such thing as a decent file open panel or Finder, and otherwise opening files would have required a lot of painful file system navigation.
With the advent of GUIs I was able to finally leave this brain-dead application based working style behind, and focus on the DATA, the PROJECTS, etc.
I don't work with applications, I work on PROJECTS and their DOCUMENTS. I then open a document, which as a SIDE EFFECT launches an application. Applications should disappear rather than becoming the center piece of a user's interaction with a computing device.
Further, documents should have an open format, and hence it should be possible to work on them with multiple applications. Grouping documents with a specific application is a huge step backwards.
Lastly, scrolling through documents DOES NOT SCALE. Have a few hundred Pages documents, and it'll become a PITA to find the proper one. After all, these are not photos, which are usually taken a few at a time, and which are easily recognized by a few, prominent features. These are text documents, that more or less all look the same. If they are strewn all into once place without decent categorization and organization, the mess is perfect in no time.
The more I look at the iPad, the more it reminds me of a modern edition of the original Mac, single-tasking, single-app paradigm, closed proprietary architecture etc. all included.
Maybe Jobs has to get fired, found a new NeXT and be forced to listen to customers again, until he creates an open version of the iPad, just like NeXT was an open version of the Mac.
Why is it, that excessive greed and lust for power always finds its way back into corporate leadership, even when you thought a company might have learned a few lessons from their recent past.
Or look at DRM. One might have thought the debate with DRM in iTunes music might have led somewhere, but no, DRM with iBooks and of course the AppStore apps is alive and kicking. Does Apple try to say it's OK to steal music, but not OK to steal books and apps?
Or alternatively, if the threat of music theft, compared to the advertising effect stolen songs have, is small enough to do away with DRM, then why does the same not hold true for books, apps, etc.?
Pretty pathetic.
I agree, part of your post is pretty pathetic.
Perhaps you could criticize what you think the product is, without going on a tirade.
... The more I look at the iPad, the more it reminds me of a modern edition of the original Mac, single-tasking, single-app paradigm, closed proprietary architecture etc. all included.
Lol, good reference. I guess many people on these boards will not agree with you as they are too nostalgic of the 80s
I agree, part of your post is pretty pathetic.
Perhaps you could criticize what you think the product is, without going on a tirade.
Not a very substantiated comment for someone who has almost 20,000 messages on these boards to his credit ...
Not a very substantiated comment for someone who has almost 20,000 messages on these boards to his credit ...
It was specific enough. I'm sure people know exactly what I meant.
Do you really believe the current file hierarchy of mac os x on a desktop would port well to the ipad? Why would I want to hunt around in finder ,trying to touch hundreds of little icons to preview which folder I should open. Sounds much easier to open pages and have all my files which could possibly be associated with that app right there.
What isvthis nonesense about the file being tied to the app? Sure, when I open any camera related app on my iPhone, all my pics are there, yet when I delete a camera app, all my photos don't disappear.
It's not like you'll try to open something in brushes and this error message will pop up saying the photo is already associated with facebook and cannot open. There will be one spot for all my photos, one for all my .mov, one for .doc etc.
As someone who regularly helps people with their macs, in all the years I've been doing it, at least 90% of the issues revolve around people not understanding file structures. In fact, for all of you botching this is a bad idea, I bet a good portion of you have duplicate files laying around because if the confusion between downloads for the system, downloads for the user, applications for the system and applications for the user. Hell, TUAW, a blog for apple nerds, regularly has to post articles explaining how you don't want to open files from the download stack/folder because it will reinstall them.
In other words, judging by the comments, most of the people complaining about this system are so out of the loop of file structures that your complaints don't even make sense, ie the sandboxing of documents which is absolutely not at all described in this article. If you don't see how this is a natural evolution of file structure, you prolly don't know what your talking about and this setup is specifically for people like you.
Apple is dramatically rethinking how applications organize their documents on iPad, leaving behind the jumbled file system and making file access between the iPad and desktop computers seamless.
That's the big problem now, isn't it? Applications should not be organizing, users should be organizing. Don't tell me what to do.
The main reason I left Windows so many years ago was because I grew weary of the damn computer telling me how I should be computing.
If the iPad didn't have to rely on another computer, if it could stand on it's own, then it would be a "revolutionary" device indeed, rather than just a larger Touch with better software.
But attaching documents to their applications is pathetic at best. One of the single most convenient elements of a computer is having a folder that contains all the data that might be included in some project - such as a brochure, where an Excel spreadsheet you received from your engineering group holds some data; an Excel spreadsheet from the finance team holds other information; copies of all the individual images used in the brochure; and, snippets of email, quotes, and other key data sources used in the body of the document.
Using the "revolutionary" file mismanagement system of the iPad, I now must remember the exact file name of each image in every damn project ever done, so I can locate it in the fabulous "media browser." Talk about a time sink. Spreadsheets are attached to email (not even it's actual application!) which may or may not still exist in Mail over time; everything else is scattered about. Who can remember all this crap? I thought that's what computers were for, to make this stuff easier, not harder.
AppleInsider's column suggests that the lowest level of users cannot fathom the hierarchical file system of a computer. This is idiotic at best. These are Apple's new customer targets? Well, they're going to need to re-design iTunes then, that's for sure.
The underlying concern - even more important than making the iPad difficult if not impossible for project work - is having an inanimate object tell me how I'm going to work, what I'm going to do, and exactly where I'm going to store my stuff.
Revolutionary, indeed. It's like that hammer never did get thrown.
Consider this is the beginning of what is likely to change a lot over time. iPad Evolution Will Have To Let Multiple File Types Share Common Space. Video content creation will surely be a high priority. I've got a hunch the Final Cut group is working on an iPad version of FCP for future release next year.
FCP n the Ipad? I don't really see how that would be useful. Unless the footage was h264 encoded and it didn't require any transcoding for I/O, the footage would choke it even if it were only SD DV.
You might see an Imovie for the tablet, but again it will be designed for h264 capture systems like the flip or the iphone camera and that's about it. Besides there are already several solid editors for the "I" devices. No need for apple to do a thing.
Pro is not Apple's market with this device. Maybe in five or ten years, if touch evolves into larger, more powerful devices. but we're no where near that stage.
Some stuff people would do well to realise:
Tablets with desktop OSs have been tried before and have failed - miserably.
Most people don't use file systems 'properly' - especially the people who would likely use the tablet. The reasons why this is the case are moot.
If you are a computer whizz, it won't be that hard for you to understand the new way of working and adapt accordingly.
All this talk of 'project folders' is madness. Due to the way this device is intrinsically linked to a 'real' computer, if you are using it to create content, you'll most likely create a document or two, then copy them to your desktop machine. The same reason also makes the whole 'what if I've got hundreds of documents to look through?' question a non point - you probably shouldn't have hundreds of documents on it.
This question of 'what happens when I delete this app or that app?' is pointless. We don't know the exact details of the file system. It might ask what you want to do with the documents contained in the app folder. It might not actually store files directly in those folders, but rather the abstraction makes it seem this way.
Basically, we don't know much about how things will work. It might be that the iPad becomes the most amazing content creation system ever, and outgrows the simplified filesystem, at which point the design might change.
Someone made the point earlier about how this is going back to the 80s in terms of complexity, and marking that down as a bad thing. It's likely that new models will emerge as the 'best way' of doing things as the new technology and ways of working change.
Nothing is set in stone. Things change.
That's the big problem now, isn't it? Applications should not be organizing, users should be organizing. Don't tell me what to do.
The main reason I left Windows so many years ago was because I grew weary of the damn computer telling me how I should be computing.
If the iPad didn't have to rely on another computer, if it could stand on it's own, then it would be a "revolutionary" device indeed, rather than just a larger Touch with better software.
But attaching documents to their applications is pathetic at best. One of the single most convenient elements of a computer is having a folder that contains all the data that might be included in some project - such as a brochure, where an Excel spreadsheet you received from your engineering group holds some data; an Excel spreadsheet from the finance team holds other information; copies of all the individual images used in the brochure; and, snippets of email, quotes, and other key data sources used in the body of the document.
Using the "revolutionary" file mismanagement system of the iPad, I now must remember the exact file name of each image in every damn project ever done, so I can locate it in the fabulous "media browser." Talk about a time sink. Spreadsheets are attached to email (not even it's actual application!) which may or may not still exist in Mail over time; everything else is scattered about. Who can remember all this crap? I thought that's what computers were for, to make this stuff easier, not harder.
AppleInsider's column suggests that the lowest level of users cannot fathom the hierarchical file system of a computer. This is idiotic at best. These are Apple's new customer targets? Well, they're going to need to re-design iTunes then, that's for sure.
The underlying concern - even more important than making the iPad difficult if not impossible for project work - is having an inanimate object tell me how I'm going to work, what I'm going to do, and exactly where I'm going to store my stuff.
Revolutionary, indeed. It's like that hammer never did get thrown.
So you're angry and indignant that a product that hasn't been released, that you don't know very much about and which you're under no compulsion to buy is "telling you what to do"?
And you go further to dream up use scenarios that further enrage you, again without really knowing any particulars, and conclude that this all must mean Apple is making machines for stupid people.
That's all, I just like to savor the insanity.
Most of the people I support see the HD on the desktop, understand that as a "file receptacle" of some kind and throw stuff in there willy nilly (absolutely the wrong thing to do on a Mac). Most use the trash as a kind of "pile of forgotten stuff" (secondary receptacle), and most store pretty much every single thing they really want to hang onto, on the desktop itself.
And it's not just files systems. We just migrated email systems - the bulk of the migration was a few weeks ago. Now people are starting to come out of the woodwork complaining they can't find their contacts. Upon following up with a few users their contacts did indeed migrate - but the bulk of the contacts they used were in their recent contacts - the system generated list from when you first email someone!
We have had to go back and show people how on the old mail client they can move the contacts they want from their recent contacts to their contacts, and then re-migrate their contacts to the new system. Totally unanticipated because to techie's, it's logical - recent contacts and trash aren't permanent storage. But getting "normal people" to understand such concepts... It's why Apple is so successful - they focus on usability. Not for geeks, but "for the rest of us". I think it's also why despite being so derided in the technical press they are so successful in the real world.
Honestly, using a folder structure is no more complex than using a filing cabinet. Frankly, I think you're overplaying the complexity involved here.
It's not an issue of complexity, because you are right - it is no harder than a file cabinet.
It's a conceptual issue. I can't explain it, but I see it all the time. My own father - a very smart man. Self-made, very successful, financially well off, wrote technical reports for years on complex engineering projects - is even published. My parents built their own house, out of pocket, doing the vast majority of the work. Clearly these are people capable of logic, independent thought and organization.
But give them a computer and it's like that part of their brain switches off. Give them instructions and it's like there is this mental block. I ask them how is me giving you three things to do on a computer different then giving you a three part recipe to cook something? They have no problem following recipes to cook - but when it comes to technology they are baffled. I really do think it comes down to conceptualization and reference - they have a hard time "connecting the dots" internally. It's obvious. And I don't know what you can do to get around it.
And just when I think about things like the above, for a moment I will wonder what is looming on the horizon that will be the same for me that my kids think is trivial and I'm a dunce for not getting. I try to keep that thought as fleeting as possible
And judging by the complaints of recent Mobile Me customers, the experience has not changed.
For every vocal whiner on the internet there are millions like me who are quite happy with mobileme (and .Mac before).
ugh.... Apple really blew it on one thing for the iPad. No USB is nearly unforgivable. I should not need to have another computer to get my files.
It's 1990 - here's your floppy drive.
At least you didn't complain it's lacking a BluRay or DVD burner so I suppose that's something to be grateful for.
It's not an issue of complexity, because you are right - it is no harder than a file cabinet.
It's a conceptual issue. I can't explain it, but I see it all the time. My own father - a very smart man. Self-made, very successful, financially well off, wrote technical reports for years on complex engineering projects - is even published. My parents built their own house, out of pocket, doing the vast majority of the work. Clearly these are people capable of logic, independent thought and organization.
But give them a computer and it's like that part of their brain switches off. Give them instructions and it's like there is this mental block. I ask them how is me giving you three things to do on a computer different then giving you a three part recipe to cook something? They have no problem following recipes to cook - but when it comes to technology they are baffled. I really do think it comes down to conceptualization and reference - they have a hard time "connecting the dots" internally. It's obvious. And I don't know what you can do to get around it.
And just when I think about things like the above, for a moment I will wonder what is looming on the horizon that will be the same for me that my kids think is trivial and I'm a dunce for not getting. I try to keep that thought as fleeting as possible
Excellent post. I've elsewhere posted a semi-inflammatory rant about this strange world we've made, wherein perfectly normal people are belittled as being "stupid" for not having an affinity for the kind of abstract systems thinking computer operating systems represent.
And computer file systems are definitely not "no more difficult" than a physical filing cabinet, for the simple reason that it's not a real filing cabinet.
Abstract representations of things are not the same as the thing itself, do not engage the same parts of the brain, and do not involve a directly transferable set of skills. The statement "I take the paper and put in it the folder labeled 'important stuff'" is not the same as actually taking a piece of paper and putting it into an actual folder, and the system of symbols and codified actions that represent that process within a computer operating system aren't the same as either doing or saying that.
Now consider the actual level of abstraction that all these ostensibly trivially easy to use "actions" involve when using a computer, wherein one must bear in mind that this thing we're calling a "desktop" is somehow different from other "files" which appear in "windows", things get "saved" to "places" that we're not actually sure where they are, there is an uncertain, mutable relationship between "files" and "applications", and "hierarchies" may loop back on themselves.
None of that has fuck-all to do with the real world that evolutionary biology has so exquisitely equipped us to handle. It's the world of recursive math and rigid logic, with the merest scrim of "usability" pasted on, using a metaphor now 30 years old.
People who are conversant with these particular abstractions, who smirk and giggle and imagine that people who don't care to contort their thinking according to the dictates of computer science are "stupid", need to be slapped, hard, over and over again, until they shut the fuck up.
I couldn't be more sincere about this, the rise the IT personality as some kind of necessary evil is really, really depressing thing. If not for the unyielding complexity of the systems they smugly inhabit, we would have kicked them unconscious long ago, just on general principles.
Which is why it's so very interesting to see people with exactly that personality so strenuously attack the very idea of something like the iPad. My most fervent wish is that Apple's model takes off, and you assholes lose your one and only significant asset. At which point we rediscover the simple fact that obsessive compulsive hyper-left brained geeks are actually incredibly unpleasant and probably best shunned.
And judging by the complaints of recent Mobile Me customers, the experience has not changed.
For every vocal whiner on the internet there are millions like me who are quite happy with mobileme (and .Mac before).
Sofabutt copied the entire article just to complain about MobileMe and Cloud Computing, despite the article not being about that.It made no sense.
ugh.... Apple really blew it on one thing for the iPad. No USB is nearly unforgivable. I should not need to have another computer to get my files.
It's 1990 - here's your floppy drive.
At least you didn't complain it's lacking a BluRay or DVD burner so I suppose that's something to be grateful for.
Huntercr Apparently doesn't understand that there is USB on all iDevices and that for the iPad there are ways to get connect cameras to the device to grab images. Makes sense to me that other file types will be allowed as well, but nothing to get upset over until we have a conformation.
Most of the people I support see the HD on the desktop, understand that as a "file receptacle" of some kind and throw stuff in there willy nilly (absolutely the wrong thing to do on a Mac). Most use the trash as a kind of "pile of forgotten stuff" (secondary receptacle), and most store pretty much every single thing they really want to hang onto, on the desktop itself.
I had an elderly user ask me where all her emails had gone. She said they'd disappeared. She showed me her outlook client and pointed out that the Inbox for the new emails was fine, but all her older mails that she'd stored in the trash had gone.
I expressed my concern, and (with humour) said the same thing happened to me a few weeks ago. On my regular desk I'd had all my sheets of paper that I was working with, and I had filed all the things I'd finished working with but might need later in the trash/bin under the desk. I came in one morning and they were gone!
She understood and actually had a bit of a laugh. Normally I would have explained rather than made a joke of it... and in the past with things like this the users get embarassed and say how stupid they are as a starting point, so this track actually seemed to be more effective in the short term AND she hasn't stored things in the trash since.
I had an elderly user ask me where all her emails had gone. She said they'd disappeared. She showed me her outlook client and pointed out that the Inbox for the new emails was fine, but all her older mails that she'd stored in the trash had gone.
I expressed my concern, and (with humour) said the same thing happened to me a few weeks ago. On my regular desk I'd had all my sheets of paper that I was working with, and I had filed all the things I'd finished working with but might need later in the trash/bin under the desk. I came in one morning and they were gone!
She understood and actually had a bit of a laugh. Normally I would have explained rather than made a joke of it... and in the past with things like this the users get embarassed and say how stupid they are as a starting point, so this track actually seemed to be more effective in the short term AND she hasn't stored things in the trash since.
...and people wonder why IT guys aren't all that popular.
Looks like addabox has it about right.
This is where metadata could make this file system work. Tag one project's files with the project name.
Exactly!
For once, i think this is a fundamental change with a really positive result. Getting rid of folder/file structures is a big move but with so many benefits. It works well for iPhoto and Aperture, and i think it would work well for a whole system