I think you're on the right track, and a 'document' oriented interface is what I think the next step will be, as opposed to Apple's dead-end app-oriented interf

I think you're on the right track, and a 'document' oriented interface is what I think the next step will be, as opposed to Apple's dead-end app-oriented interface. Your meta-document is similar to something I have been envisioning... the current way things work is that you can either: a) put some photos in a folder, and to view one you open it which launches the default application to view it. b) open up your photo application, which either knows where the photos are, or asks you to point it to where the photos are. I think the future is where the folder becomes the 'application' by the mere act of putting a bunch of photos in it. But it wouldn't be an application in the current sense, but rather a collection of separate and customizable ways of interacting with photos. The average user might just want some buttons to print photos or email them to friends, but for a web designer you could extend the meta-document by adding commands to resize images, change formats, crop, etc -- not by buying something massive like photoshop, but simply by downloading (or creating) mini-extensions that do exactly what you need to do. So yeah, the way I see it, we'll move away from some shell which organizes files and applications that interact with the files, towards a system where the 'shell' itself evolves into whatever 'application' you need it to be.