So non-techies are going to be able to view their files a far more intuitive way. Big whoop. Did they remove Terminal.app? Until that happens, there's no cause for complaints.
Remove Terminal.app? Sigh ... that would truly signal the second step to saying bye to the dawn of computing (end of punch cards was the first step).
Jobs then contrasted the conventional OS-level file system for managing documents on a computer to an email application, explaining that "there?s always been a better way to find stuff. You don?t keep your e-mail on your file system, right? The app manages it. And that was the breakthrough, as an example, in iTunes," Jobs stated.
"You don?t keep your music in the file system, that would be crazy. You keep it in this app that knows about music and knows how to find things in lots of different ways. Same with photos: we?ve got an app that knows all about photos. And these apps manage their own file storage."
And when you receive an email containing a message, copies of several related Word documents, a coupe of spreadsheets, and many photos of today's condition of the job site, some inline with the email, some embedded in the word docs, some as footnotes to the spreadsheets, you want them all together in the file system under /projects/project x/...
It is up to the user to decide where and how to store their stuff. Nobody in their right minds would take physical copies of the mentioned items and put them in seperate cabinets, one for photos. one for spreadsheets, etc. They can and will arrange them by project first, with certain subfiles as they deem proper. Or by type of item, if they are so inclined.
The point is that Apple wants to impose their "one size fits all" system rather than allowing the user to decide whether or not to use Apple's system. For many users, splitting things up is the antithesis of their object oriented style of working.
I agree, just spent about 3 hours arranging my files in folders and sub folders. I like knowing where everything is, and how it is organized. My kids have no interest in this and simply use spotlight to find their files. However, Spotlight often misses files and if I had to rely on it, there would be lots of files I would not be able to find. Hard to see this as an improvement.
Agreed. But it is sadly true. I die a little inside every time I see a user who has no clue at all whatsoever how the file system is arranged. It's depressingly common on both the Mac and PC sides.
It is not necessarily true that people have no clue. The file system is basically based on what people have been doing for years - filing. There is a desktop and there are drawers, shelves and filing cabinets. Most people will understand that and if related to a computer I think most people get it. But that isn't the problem... To see what the problem is go and see how most people organize their desks, their cabinets and drawers and filing cabinets. The theory is simple, it is putting it all into practice that is hard. I think for most people it is against their nature to be super organized and structured in a 'logical' way.
What complicates life on the computer is the ability to duplicate and the reluctance to delete. (There is a little hoarder inside every one of us!)
I think Apple is on the right track here. Mostly we use the most recently used files which will be accessible from with each app. Using Spotlight is also brilliant - it is the digital equivalent of yelling to your mom / wife / kids "where the hell is my [insert named item here]" and not getting any lip in return.
One of the big problems with the iCloud implementation is this statement: "Graphics and PDFs you work on in Preview and save to iCloud are only visible within Preview." I use multiple documents for the same files, particularly graphics and PDFs. The solution, open that application and save a copy to the desktop. In other words, the solution is to not use iCloud. It may work for people with a few documents that they want to share, but I have multiple projects that I am working on and many of them are similar, but this method would require me to name them all very carefully so I would be able to know which one I was looking for. In each of my projects, I have a Matlab file names analysis.m, which is my main analysis function that is based on previous analysis.m files, but customized for this project. When I search, I end up with about 50 analysis.m files and the current search makes it very difficult to find the exact one I am looking for. Now, when I want to open up two of them so I can compare the differences in TextWrangler, I will have to copy them to the Desktop and open them up. Now, I end up with 52 versions and two of them are the same. How do I get those copied versions back into the cloud? On a related note, how do I delete files from the cloud?
I'm not against changing the way I do things, but the current implementation is far inferior to using DropBox. I can see almost no instance in which I would want to use iCloud other than as an easy way to get a final presentation into Keynote on the iPad.
I want to install Mountain Lion but guess what? When I formatted my HD last year, I used “Master Boot Record” for the partition map scheme instead of GUID Partition Table”. Never knew that had to be the case.
I did a Time Machine backup yesterday (took like 12 hours!!). Now I have to reformat my HD using my OSX 10.5 Leopard disk. But here’s the thing, my Time Machine backup has OSX 10.6.8. When I perform a restore, will it put 10.6.8 back on? Or do I have to install 10.6 Snow Leopard, run the updates and THEN perform a restore?
One of the big problems with the iCloud implementation is this statement: "Graphics and PDFs you work on in Preview and save to iCloud are only visible within Preview." I use multiple documents for the same files, particularly graphics and PDFs. The solution, open that application and save a copy to the desktop. In other words, the solution is to not use iCloud. It may work for people with a few documents that they want to share, but I have multiple projects that I am working on and many of them are similar, but this method would require me to name them all very carefully so I would be able to know which one I was looking for. In each of my projects, I have a Matlab file names analysis.m, which is my main analysis function that is based on previous analysis.m files, but customized for this project. When I search, I end up with about 50 analysis.m files and the current search makes it very difficult to find the exact one I am looking for. Now, when I want to open up two of them so I can compare the differences in TextWrangler, I will have to copy them to the Desktop and open them up. Now, I end up with 52 versions and two of them are the same. How do I get those copied versions back into the cloud? On a related note, how do I delete files from the cloud?
I'm not against changing the way I do things, but the current implementation is far inferior to using DropBox. I can see almost no instance in which I would want to use iCloud other than as an easy way to get a final presentation into Keynote on the iPad.
I suspect you fall outside of 'normal use'. In your case, as in many other who need to file things away in a particular way in order to keep track of projects etc, the best system is the traditional file system, tailor configured by you to suit your specify needs, imo. If you need to work across devices you can use dropbox or sugar sync or similar.
I've been using Microsoft's SkyDrive cloud solution and I like it a lot. Right now I have my entire Document, Music, Pictures, and Movie folders automatically syncing to the cloud which I can access via iPhone app or any Mac/PC web browser. As far as I can tell, it's vastly superior to iCloud.
It is not necessarily true that people have no clue. The file system is basically based on what people have been doing for years - filing.
The odd thing is my computer is pretty well organised, filing wise. My physical desktop is a mess.
Most people I work with stick everything o their computer desktop. The idea of a file system makes no sense.
When I read about iCloud I find it limiting, but I know just about every colleage and student I work with will take to it like the proverbial duck to water.
I also think I will find it very useful for sharing work stuff with my iMac, MacBook air and iPad, and my work MacBook pro. The only limiting factor there is... Microsoft office.
One of the big problems with the iCloud implementation is this statement: "Graphics and PDFs you work on in Preview and save to iCloud are only visible within Preview." I use multiple documents for the same files, particularly graphics and PDFs. The solution, open that application and save a copy to the desktop. In other words, the solution is to not use iCloud.
I am not sure what your problem is. Did you miss the part in the article:
Quote:
Files aren't stuck with a specific app
When users first hear of iCloud's new per-app security model, one of the first reactions is a fear that their documents are now stuck inside that one app, and can't be shared. This isn't actually an issue however. If you want to move a screenshot from Preview to Photoshop, for example, you can still save the graphic file explicitly to the Desktop or any other location from within Preview. You can also search for the file in the Finder and "Open With" whatever app you'd like.
"displacing the local file system that non-technical users have long struggled to comprehend"
Since when do users have trouble comprehending the filesystem? It's a fairly intuitive structure, with "folders" containing "documents", just like a filing cabinet works in real life.
I don't think Apple is giving users enough credit here. There's nothing hard to comprehend about a filesystem. Even my mother, who is about non-technical as can be, understood it with minimal explanation!
So far iCloud has been a big disappointment, similar to the way MobileMe was.
Tab syncing? Might be nice for a few people but I never leave tabs open long enough to ever worry about that. Bookmark syncing was a nice idea but poorly handled. Took me days to recover from that disaster. What is missing here is that there are certain sites that I may want bookmarked on one computer (say a work computer or a home machine or my iPad) but no way to control what gets synced to what computer. It’s called privacy and efficiency.
And now I will have even more invisible directories taking up space on my computer! I may be an old fart but I use the directories to organize how I do my work and how I handle my leisure. I can easily have hundreds if not tens of thousands of files at any one time. A nightmare to find the one that I am looking for. And don’t suggest Spotlight! I have always got uneven results from using it, when it works its great, when it doesn’t it’s worse than useless.
I agree, just spent about 3 hours arranging my files in folders and sub folders. I like knowing where everything is, and how it is organized. My kids have no interest in this and simply use spotlight to find their files. However, Spotlight often misses files and if I had to rely on it, there would be lots of files I would not be able to find. Hard to see this as an improvement.
Just how many times have you done that?
Can't agree with you about Spotlight though.
Just about every week I get a call from a friend, colleague or client having problems finding a file. Thank goodness they are smart enough to use Macs. Unfortunately they are not bright enough to go much beyond querying what they think is the name of the file they are looking for.
With Spotlight's extensive indexing metadata, I can't think of anything that it couldn't find. This is particular true if you minimize your search terms as you go, e.g., using partial names to start with, rather than entering the full title which if misspelled can only be problematic.
In addition, there is nothing more complementary than Smart Folders, (which uses the Spotlight engine) to optimize search strategies. And, in particular, to help organize your files in folders and subfolder as you have done.
And with what is in store when iCloud and Mountain Lion finally meet, I find it hard to see that this is not a significant improvement.
P.S., I know that I will get disagreement here, but even in my particular endeavour as a developer and manager of massive database solutions, even I have to rely on my favourite 'finder', i.e., my wife. As she says, "Too bad Spotlight can't tell you were you left your car keys."
This does not work well with Non-Apple devices. As a result, it is nearly useless to me. I will have to continue to use DropBox as it is a true multiplatform system...
I am not sure what your problem is. Did you miss the part in the article:
Or am I missing something?
Yes, the next part that I wrote. The solution posed is to make a copy of the file to the local filesystem (either by searching for it and editing it or saving it from the original application), so I end up with a duplicate of that file, which is not very efficient. Then, when searching, both of those files will show up, which is not very intuitive. If I open it another application, then there will be yet another duplicate. When I save one of those in a new application, how does the new version get synced with the others or can it be put back up into the cloud and associated with the original application? So, in the end, I am left with multiple versions of the same file, but at different states and found either within one application or by searching, in which case they all show up, but with little to differentiate them. That sounds like a mess to me.
This is the same issue that iOS has with files. When I get a file, I open it with a certain application, edit it, then open it with another application to do something else with it. In the process, I end up with a slightly different version in each app. Isn't it a little ironic that the solution posed in this article to using iCloud in this case is "Don't use iCloud." Unfortunately, on iOS devices, there is no alternative, so these issues are very limiting. Take for example working with DropBox. How can you edit a file so that it will go back to other devices? With a file system based approach, you open it, edit it, save it, done. Very simple. In iOS, more steps and very unintuitive as you send the document from app to app.
I'm not a big fan of this... for some applications it will be very nice (game saves , but for other work I'm not a fan yet:
ICloud is only available to applications in the App Store. The App store has severe limitations: No migration path for applications originally purchased outside the app store, no major upgrades (as in "paid for upgrades") and now required sandboxing. The latter means that many applications can't go in the app store.
In many instances, it makes sense to group files together across applications - e.g. to have some PDFs, word processor files, spread sheets, presentations that are all part of the same project in a common, shared directory. Two of these - "grouped together across applications" and "shared" - match poorly with iCloud.
I dread to use crappy icloud interfaces I've seen for handling many files - e.g. the number of word documents I've written the last five years.
Going via the desktop for sharing information is stupid for one file, and mind-numbing for a project of files.
Yes, the next part that I wrote. The solution posed is to make a copy of the file to the local filesystem (either by searching for it and editing it or saving it from the original application)
No. Why make a copy. Simply open the save file in the 'other' application.
Now you do have to files that may contain the same graphic(s), however, they are not a duplicate of either.
No. Why make a copy. Simply open the save file in the 'other' application.
Now you do have to files that may contain the same graphic(s), however, they are not a duplicate of either.
That is not what the article says: "The system handles the duplication and local saving of that file, and Pages can begin working on it just as if iCloud never existed. The original document remains in iCloud, tied to TextEdit. Pages (or any other app) can work on its copy, and save it to the file system just as always." (bold added)
If I save it, or slightly edit it, how do I know when I come back which is the most recent. Worse yet, what if I forget I worked on it in the other app and start making edits to it in the original application. Now I have two files with different edits.
This copying behavior is one of the biggest problematic issues with this approach. In order to open it with another application, there is a copy made of the file that the other application can work on. Thus, there are two files, one associated with each application.
Comments
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
So non-techies are going to be able to view their files a far more intuitive way. Big whoop. Did they remove Terminal.app? Until that happens, there's no cause for complaints.
Remove Terminal.app? Sigh ... that would truly signal the second step to saying bye to the dawn of computing (end of punch cards was the first step).
Quote:
Originally Posted by AppleInsider
Jobs then contrasted the conventional OS-level file system for managing documents on a computer to an email application, explaining that "there?s always been a better way to find stuff. You don?t keep your e-mail on your file system, right? The app manages it. And that was the breakthrough, as an example, in iTunes," Jobs stated.
"You don?t keep your music in the file system, that would be crazy. You keep it in this app that knows about music and knows how to find things in lots of different ways. Same with photos: we?ve got an app that knows all about photos. And these apps manage their own file storage."
And when you receive an email containing a message, copies of several related Word documents, a coupe of spreadsheets, and many photos of today's condition of the job site, some inline with the email, some embedded in the word docs, some as footnotes to the spreadsheets, you want them all together in the file system under /projects/project x/...
It is up to the user to decide where and how to store their stuff. Nobody in their right minds would take physical copies of the mentioned items and put them in seperate cabinets, one for photos. one for spreadsheets, etc. They can and will arrange them by project first, with certain subfiles as they deem proper. Or by type of item, if they are so inclined.
The point is that Apple wants to impose their "one size fits all" system rather than allowing the user to decide whether or not to use Apple's system. For many users, splitting things up is the antithesis of their object oriented style of working.
I agree, just spent about 3 hours arranging my files in folders and sub folders. I like knowing where everything is, and how it is organized. My kids have no interest in this and simply use spotlight to find their files. However, Spotlight often misses files and if I had to rely on it, there would be lots of files I would not be able to find. Hard to see this as an improvement.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bluefish86
Agreed. But it is sadly true. I die a little inside every time I see a user who has no clue at all whatsoever how the file system is arranged. It's depressingly common on both the Mac and PC sides.
It is not necessarily true that people have no clue. The file system is basically based on what people have been doing for years - filing. There is a desktop and there are drawers, shelves and filing cabinets. Most people will understand that and if related to a computer I think most people get it. But that isn't the problem... To see what the problem is go and see how most people organize their desks, their cabinets and drawers and filing cabinets. The theory is simple, it is putting it all into practice that is hard. I think for most people it is against their nature to be super organized and structured in a 'logical' way.
What complicates life on the computer is the ability to duplicate and the reluctance to delete. (There is a little hoarder inside every one of us!)
I think Apple is on the right track here. Mostly we use the most recently used files which will be accessible from with each app. Using Spotlight is also brilliant - it is the digital equivalent of yelling to your mom / wife / kids "where the hell is my [insert named item here]" and not getting any lip in return.
I know people who have trouble comprehending cut, copy, and paste. Yes, I'm serious.
One of the big problems with the iCloud implementation is this statement: "Graphics and PDFs you work on in Preview and save to iCloud are only visible within Preview." I use multiple documents for the same files, particularly graphics and PDFs. The solution, open that application and save a copy to the desktop. In other words, the solution is to not use iCloud. It may work for people with a few documents that they want to share, but I have multiple projects that I am working on and many of them are similar, but this method would require me to name them all very carefully so I would be able to know which one I was looking for. In each of my projects, I have a Matlab file names analysis.m, which is my main analysis function that is based on previous analysis.m files, but customized for this project. When I search, I end up with about 50 analysis.m files and the current search makes it very difficult to find the exact one I am looking for. Now, when I want to open up two of them so I can compare the differences in TextWrangler, I will have to copy them to the Desktop and open them up. Now, I end up with 52 versions and two of them are the same. How do I get those copied versions back into the cloud? On a related note, how do I delete files from the cloud?
I'm not against changing the way I do things, but the current implementation is far inferior to using DropBox. I can see almost no instance in which I would want to use iCloud other than as an easy way to get a final presentation into Keynote on the iPad.
Not sure if you can help with this.
I want to install Mountain Lion but guess what? When I formatted my HD last year, I used “Master Boot Record” for the partition map scheme instead of GUID Partition Table”. Never knew that had to be the case.
I did a Time Machine backup yesterday (took like 12 hours!!). Now I have to reformat my HD using my OSX 10.5 Leopard disk. But here’s the thing, my Time Machine backup has OSX 10.6.8. When I perform a restore, will it put 10.6.8 back on? Or do I have to install 10.6 Snow Leopard, run the updates and THEN perform a restore?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Quevar
One of the big problems with the iCloud implementation is this statement: "Graphics and PDFs you work on in Preview and save to iCloud are only visible within Preview." I use multiple documents for the same files, particularly graphics and PDFs. The solution, open that application and save a copy to the desktop. In other words, the solution is to not use iCloud. It may work for people with a few documents that they want to share, but I have multiple projects that I am working on and many of them are similar, but this method would require me to name them all very carefully so I would be able to know which one I was looking for. In each of my projects, I have a Matlab file names analysis.m, which is my main analysis function that is based on previous analysis.m files, but customized for this project. When I search, I end up with about 50 analysis.m files and the current search makes it very difficult to find the exact one I am looking for. Now, when I want to open up two of them so I can compare the differences in TextWrangler, I will have to copy them to the Desktop and open them up. Now, I end up with 52 versions and two of them are the same. How do I get those copied versions back into the cloud? On a related note, how do I delete files from the cloud?
I'm not against changing the way I do things, but the current implementation is far inferior to using DropBox. I can see almost no instance in which I would want to use iCloud other than as an easy way to get a final presentation into Keynote on the iPad.
I suspect you fall outside of 'normal use'. In your case, as in many other who need to file things away in a particular way in order to keep track of projects etc, the best system is the traditional file system, tailor configured by you to suit your specify needs, imo. If you need to work across devices you can use dropbox or sugar sync or similar.
I've been using Microsoft's SkyDrive cloud solution and I like it a lot. Right now I have my entire Document, Music, Pictures, and Movie folders automatically syncing to the cloud which I can access via iPhone app or any Mac/PC web browser. As far as I can tell, it's vastly superior to iCloud.
The odd thing is my computer is pretty well organised, filing wise. My physical desktop is a mess.
Most people I work with stick everything o their computer desktop. The idea of a file system makes no sense.
When I read about iCloud I find it limiting, but I know just about every colleage and student I work with will take to it like the proverbial duck to water.
I also think I will find it very useful for sharing work stuff with my iMac, MacBook air and iPad, and my work MacBook pro. The only limiting factor there is... Microsoft office.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Quevar
One of the big problems with the iCloud implementation is this statement: "Graphics and PDFs you work on in Preview and save to iCloud are only visible within Preview." I use multiple documents for the same files, particularly graphics and PDFs. The solution, open that application and save a copy to the desktop. In other words, the solution is to not use iCloud.
I am not sure what your problem is. Did you miss the part in the article:
Quote:
Files aren't stuck with a specific app
When users first hear of iCloud's new per-app security model, one of the first reactions is a fear that their documents are now stuck inside that one app, and can't be shared. This isn't actually an issue however. If you want to move a screenshot from Preview to Photoshop, for example, you can still save the graphic file explicitly to the Desktop or any other location from within Preview. You can also search for the file in the Finder and "Open With" whatever app you'd like.
Or am I missing something?
"displacing the local file system that non-technical users have long struggled to comprehend"
Since when do users have trouble comprehending the filesystem? It's a fairly intuitive structure, with "folders" containing "documents", just like a filing cabinet works in real life.
I don't think Apple is giving users enough credit here. There's nothing hard to comprehend about a filesystem. Even my mother, who is about non-technical as can be, understood it with minimal explanation!
So far iCloud has been a big disappointment, similar to the way MobileMe was.
Tab syncing? Might be nice for a few people but I never leave tabs open long enough to ever worry about that. Bookmark syncing was a nice idea but poorly handled. Took me days to recover from that disaster. What is missing here is that there are certain sites that I may want bookmarked on one computer (say a work computer or a home machine or my iPad) but no way to control what gets synced to what computer. It’s called privacy and efficiency.
And now I will have even more invisible directories taking up space on my computer! I may be an old fart but I use the directories to organize how I do my work and how I handle my leisure. I can easily have hundreds if not tens of thousands of files at any one time. A nightmare to find the one that I am looking for. And don’t suggest Spotlight! I have always got uneven results from using it, when it works its great, when it doesn’t it’s worse than useless.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rmusikantow
I agree, just spent about 3 hours arranging my files in folders and sub folders. I like knowing where everything is, and how it is organized. My kids have no interest in this and simply use spotlight to find their files. However, Spotlight often misses files and if I had to rely on it, there would be lots of files I would not be able to find. Hard to see this as an improvement.
Just how many times have you done that?
Can't agree with you about Spotlight though.
Just about every week I get a call from a friend, colleague or client having problems finding a file. Thank goodness they are smart enough to use Macs. Unfortunately they are not bright enough to go much beyond querying what they think is the name of the file they are looking for.
With Spotlight's extensive indexing metadata, I can't think of anything that it couldn't find. This is particular true if you minimize your search terms as you go, e.g., using partial names to start with, rather than entering the full title which if misspelled can only be problematic.
In addition, there is nothing more complementary than Smart Folders, (which uses the Spotlight engine) to optimize search strategies. And, in particular, to help organize your files in folders and subfolder as you have done.
And with what is in store when iCloud and Mountain Lion finally meet, I find it hard to see that this is not a significant improvement.
P.S., I know that I will get disagreement here, but even in my particular endeavour as a developer and manager of massive database solutions, even I have to rely on my favourite 'finder', i.e., my wife. As she says, "Too bad Spotlight can't tell you were you left your car keys."
Unfortunately,
This does not work well with Non-Apple devices. As a result, it is nearly useless to me. I will have to continue to use DropBox as it is a true multiplatform system...
Quote:
Originally Posted by chabig
I know people who have trouble comprehending cut, copy, and paste. Yes, I'm serious.
that is why they only give kids scissors with rounded ends and make sure the paste they use is non-toxic and edible.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Onhka
I am not sure what your problem is. Did you miss the part in the article:
Or am I missing something?
Yes, the next part that I wrote. The solution posed is to make a copy of the file to the local filesystem (either by searching for it and editing it or saving it from the original application), so I end up with a duplicate of that file, which is not very efficient. Then, when searching, both of those files will show up, which is not very intuitive. If I open it another application, then there will be yet another duplicate. When I save one of those in a new application, how does the new version get synced with the others or can it be put back up into the cloud and associated with the original application? So, in the end, I am left with multiple versions of the same file, but at different states and found either within one application or by searching, in which case they all show up, but with little to differentiate them. That sounds like a mess to me.
This is the same issue that iOS has with files. When I get a file, I open it with a certain application, edit it, then open it with another application to do something else with it. In the process, I end up with a slightly different version in each app. Isn't it a little ironic that the solution posed in this article to using iCloud in this case is "Don't use iCloud." Unfortunately, on iOS devices, there is no alternative, so these issues are very limiting. Take for example working with DropBox. How can you edit a file so that it will go back to other devices? With a file system based approach, you open it, edit it, save it, done. Very simple. In iOS, more steps and very unintuitive as you send the document from app to app.
I'm not a big fan of this... for some applications it will be very nice (game saves
ICloud is only available to applications in the App Store. The App store has severe limitations: No migration path for applications originally purchased outside the app store, no major upgrades (as in "paid for upgrades") and now required sandboxing. The latter means that many applications can't go in the app store.
In many instances, it makes sense to group files together across applications - e.g. to have some PDFs, word processor files, spread sheets, presentations that are all part of the same project in a common, shared directory. Two of these - "grouped together across applications" and "shared" - match poorly with iCloud.
I dread to use crappy icloud interfaces I've seen for handling many files - e.g. the number of word documents I've written the last five years.
Going via the desktop for sharing information is stupid for one file, and mind-numbing for a project of files.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Quevar
Yes, the next part that I wrote. The solution posed is to make a copy of the file to the local filesystem (either by searching for it and editing it or saving it from the original application)
No. Why make a copy. Simply open the save file in the 'other' application.
Now you do have to files that may contain the same graphic(s), however, they are not a duplicate of either.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Onhka
No. Why make a copy. Simply open the save file in the 'other' application.
Now you do have to files that may contain the same graphic(s), however, they are not a duplicate of either.
That is not what the article says: "The system handles the duplication and local saving of that file, and Pages can begin working on it just as if iCloud never existed. The original document remains in iCloud, tied to TextEdit. Pages (or any other app) can work on its copy, and save it to the file system just as always." (bold added)
If I save it, or slightly edit it, how do I know when I come back which is the most recent. Worse yet, what if I forget I worked on it in the other app and start making edits to it in the original application. Now I have two files with different edits.
This copying behavior is one of the biggest problematic issues with this approach. In order to open it with another application, there is a copy made of the file that the other application can work on. Thus, there are two files, one associated with each application.