Interoperability in iPhone OS
Since the first day I had iPhone (and even a bit earlier) I’ve been thinking how radically Apple changed the experience of working with a computer. I mean, I was thinking of what exactly have been changed and was trying to figure out what was the essence of the change and what was bothering me most.
With the release of iPad Apple tries to prove that this class of devices can be more fun than iPhone and at the same time more productive. Watching the demos of iWork on iPad the only question I had was how do I get my document to the device and out? The only interoperability I’ve seen was inserting image from gallery to Pages document. But how do I insert a chart? The very same restriction is applicable to iPhone too. Every app I’ve used on it has some kind of document. And the only way to get it out of the app on iPhone is to email it. Yes, you can save images to the gallery and take them out of it in other app. That’s actually the only shared space for iPhone apps. There’s no general purpose storage space on the device accessible by user.
OK, why all this bothers me that much? My day job is a programming. And my primary OS is Linux. I spend a lot of time in terminal dealing with files. Everyone knows what file is.
A computer file is a block of arbitrary information, or resource for storing information, which is available to a computer program and is usually based on some kind of durable storage. A file is durable in the sense that it remains available for programs to use after the current program has finished.
Wikipedia - Computer File, emphasis added
In my work I do a lot of stuff with files. I combine information from different sources. I convert it from one format to another. I extract bits of information from big arrays of data. Doing that I use many different programs. That’s what computers do. They process information.The other thing they do is they store information. That’s the basic functions of modern computer. With the iPhone OS we see that at its core it’s capable of doing both because iPhone OS is a Unix-based OS. One of the core principles of a Unix system is a file. Unix has a file for everything. All user data is kept in files, every device is represented as a file. A lot of files. But none is for user on iPhone OS. Uh, OK. So why limiting user? I mean if OS is able to expose files to user, why not? I believe, Apple tries to rebrand files. The old file is just a named piece of data that lays in some folder, that lays in another folder and so on and so on. The whole file system thing is a complex concept for non-tech people. I’ve been explaining this file system thing to my parents who used computer last time in univercity when computer took a big room and made a lot of noice so I know how hard is that to understand for non-tech people. From the other side the new documents is much simpler. You just know what app works with what types of documents and just use that. And you know that your documents are in that app. Like you know that if you want to nail something you need a hammer.
So what’s now? I think, Apple’s doing well in introducing new simpler concepts in computing. They want to expand their user base to people who was scared of computers. They show that it can be easy. I’m just a bit worry that this simplification cuts just a bit too much to make it usable by power users.
Update Jan 31, 2010
I’d be careful believing in rumors but… According to latest rumors on the net iPad (iPhone OS 3.2) is able to download and store files so that they could be used in other apps. If that’s true thaht may change things a lot.
And yes, you probably noticed that you can not upload files in Mobile Safari. That’s just because there’s no files for users in iPhone OS.