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What's new about this is that Apple is FINALLY listening to its power iPad users! Apple introduced a Files app that essentially works like the Finder app on Ma

• SmellTheGlove 9y ago
  > Apple introduced a Files app that essentially works like the Finder app on Mac, and even allows it to now sync with third party cloud providers besides just iCloud. I think it's a real gamechanger and something I've been personally waiting on. We'll see how well it works, I suppose. Remember that Apple thought this was a dumb, backwards feature (paraphrasing) when people were asking for it years ago. > Also, in response to a sibling comment on this thread; it won't be too long now before we see full blown app development on iPads as well. What are you basing the "won't be long" sentiment on? I don't mean to get on you, but there's a lot of optimism in your post, and I'm not sure that's entirely warranted just yet. Yeah the hardware is a lot better, but it's yet to be seen if it's still just a giant iPhone from a software perspective. Of course, you may think my cynicism is unwarranted, that's fair too.
  • blazespin 9y ago
    Optimism? It's pretty obvious that Apple is going to start cannibalizing their laptops. I personally already use my ipad pro as a laptop. The file thing is neat, for sure, and I'll use it definitely (zip files, in particular) but it's not that huge for me. I'm mostly cloud based and I already have a file manager app.
    • SmellTheGlove 9y ago
      This post is about the new iPad Pro release, though. The iPad Pro itself isn't that different from a regular iPad - it has a keyboard and stylus, but the same OS and mostly the same apps. In that regard, Apple was already cannibalizing its laptops with the iPad for a certain set of use cases. The iPad Pro doesn't go much beyond that. The optimism is in framing the above as "not yet" and that's fine, but that is optimism.
  • dyarosla 9y ago
    This update in combination with all their efforts going towards Swift Playgrounds. All signs point to it.
    • SmellTheGlove 9y ago
      Swift Playgrounds looks great, so why still the need to export to Xcode to build and publish? I'd love for this to actually happen, I'm just not yet sold that it will.
  • orbitur 9y ago
    > Remember that Apple thought this was a dumb, backwards feature (paraphrasing) when people were asking for it years ago They also (rightly) saw that iOS, and the devices it runs on, weren't even close to replacing a desktop-class device. Now, we're about to cross that line.
    • SmellTheGlove 9y ago
      > They also (rightly) saw that iOS, and the devices it runs on, weren't even close to replacing a desktop-class device. Now, we're about to cross that line. Are we? I'm not seeing that. It may happen, but this iteration isn't it. I'm really happy with every OSX product I've purchased. On the iOS side, there's a long way to go before I can bring only my iPad instead of my Macbook. I don't really want to carry both. If the iPad Pro can replace my laptop for the bulk of my work day, I'll be right there with you buying one. I'm just not sold on that as Apple's vision.
      • orbitur 9y ago
        I said we're close. I think we're less than 5 years away from macOS being phased out. I'd put money on it. edit: People really dislike this comment. I'm not claiming desktop class devices are going away, I'm claiming that iOS is growing into a desktop class OS, and we are absolutely at that threshold. I hope anyone downvoting can explicitly address that.
        • ghaff 9y ago
          It's hard to believe that there won't be some sort of reconvergence between laptops and tablets. The trick is to do so without compromising either the laptop or the tablet. One could argue that the Surface Pro comes closest, but not really. It really doesn't make sense for me to travel with both a tablet and a laptop/Chromebook given that they're mostly similar hardware. Their sweet spots are different enough today that I carry both--and consider that, if I only carried one, I'd probably be carrying more batteries as well. On the other hand, for the same reasons, it's not really in Apple's interests to discourage you from buying two separate devices. I do think we'll get to that point though.
• BatFastard 9y ago
  Wow, give them 5 more years and they will catch up to where the Surface is now!
  • ChuckMcM 9y ago
    It is interesting to watch two companies converging on to the same product space, I suggested to Panos that my choice between updating an iPad or getting a new Surface would be whether or not they include LTE connectivity in the Surface. The thing Microsoft still doesn't seem to internalize is that 'wifi only' is a disqualifying feature for many people they would like to convert.
    • jrs95 9y ago
      the new surface pro is going to have LTE
      • BatFastard 9y ago
        Excellent, seems like ALL new devices should have that built in as an option. Along with SMS and Voice!
        • seanp2k2 9y ago
          Consider how much more common this would be if wireless ISPs added more reasonable options for adding additional devices to your plan. More devices which would eat through your crazy low transfer cap more quickly...which they currently charge you quite a bit to tack on.
          • ghaff 9y ago
            I honestly don't have much interest as things stand. I'm on a theoretically unlimited AT&T plan for my phone. I might pay a few extra bucks to get other devices onto cellular. But, for the fees as they exist today, I'll just make do with my phone if WiFi isn't available.
          • 9y ago
• orbitur 9y ago
  > Apple introduced a Files app that essentially works like the Finder app on Mac Gosh, I hope. Seems very much tied to "cloud," though. I hope I don't have to turn on iCloud Drive to use it.
  • dyarosla 9y ago
    Their demo showed integration with Box, Google Drive and a few others.
    • orbitur 9y ago
      I hope any of those aren't needed.
      • dyarosla 9y ago
        I would imagine that you could save locally too (don't know for sure), but I mean, they upped the space for both models and have a high-end model with 512GB of space. I'm guessing that's not for simply storing more Photos and Video.
      • glhaynes 9y ago
        There was an "On My iPad" item in the sidebar. Seems promising.
      • mcphage 9y ago
        The file system on iOS is a bit weird, since apps are all sandboxed. But it looks like it can access the public files of apps on your device, and I think there was an "On this iPad" tab in sidebar.
  • deepGem 9y ago
    Man, what a bummer it'll be if this is restricted to cloud drives. Given the app sand boxing in iOS I wouldn't be surprised if that is it the case. I didn't find any aspect of the demo which showcased a local filesystem.
    • 9y ago
• akhilcacharya 9y ago
  How many of these will also work on the cheaper iPads?
• pier25 9y ago
  It's still missing mouse support
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
• mozumder 9y ago
  All I ask for is XCode for iPad...
• mtw 9y ago
  I'm sure it's still years away (>3 years) before we'll have a terminal, a good code editor, postgres, xcode etc. and photoshop on the iPad.
  • jsjohnst 9y ago
    I don't get why the first two don't exist already. Really annoying there's so many apps in both categories, but they are horrid. It's as if they don't use their own products. On the last app though, did you see the demo of Serif's app!? That looked incredible!
  • yannovitch 9y ago
    I use Textastic and Git2go personally, quite happy with it.
• wor3q 9y ago
  But can you install a real web browser now?
  • neilalexander 9y ago
    What do you call a "real web browser"? I feel like Safari very much qualifies. (Please don't say lynx. I'll despair if you say lynx.)
• teilo 9y ago
  The Files App does not exactly work like Finder. It gives you access to a central file store that an application must support before your files show up there. It does NOT give you the ability to browse the iOS filesystem.
  • neilalexander 9y ago
    Funnily enough, one of the biggest issues I have observed with my parents using a desktop computer is "well where did that thing go that I was looking at yesterday". Naked filesystems are intuitive to us as power users because we are in a mindset which many more casual computer users aren't. We understand that it's a hierarchy and that files have formats and extensions and file type associations and a whole list of technical details as to the how and why. On the other hand, there are plenty of people who have no idea about this stuff - they will be thinking about the application they were using at the time and will expect that things they have "saved" are somehow associated with that application. They might not even associate a contact card or a photograph with being a "file"! I feel like the iOS Files app makes a decent attempt at bringing features that we power-users enjoy - like tags, search, online storage - into an ultimately simplified model that is cognitively compatible with a much wider spectrum of users. The ideal user interface to a filesystem is one that actually foregoes the idea of "files" (because formats and file type associations and extensions and things aren't intuitive to everyone) and instead treats photographs like photographs and contact cards like contact cards and emails like emails and webpages like webpages. It seems Apple are striving towards that. Did you notice in the keynote that, when dragging and dropping photos into an email, they were actually represented as photos and not as file icons?
    • teilo 9y ago
      I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I agree that they are approaching this the right way. It's just not the "Finder for iOS" that many are calling it. The president of my company is one such person as you describe. He has no idea. He puts everything on the desktop, because the only way he knows of opening a document is to launch the corresponding application, and then File, Open the file on his desktop. In other words, he treats his Mac like an iPad. We have tried to break him of this habit, to no avail.