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Windows Mobile was the pinnacle of the smartphone experience. The release of the iPhone imo was the Eternal September of the mobile experience in so far as it

Windows Mobile was the pinnacle of the smartphone experience. The release of the iPhone imo was the Eternal September of the mobile experience in so far as it was the tipping point wherein a demographic of users who didn't even need to be convinced that yielding full and openly adversarial control over the hardware to the network operators and advertisers became an uncontested majority. They came with a text editor, a calculator, and a file browser out of the box -- can this generation even imagine not having to run the app store gauntlet of monetization and fraud to Open Files, I wonder?

jodrellblank 6y ago
What use cases does "opening files" have which isn't addressed by iPhone's built-in apps and at the same time doesn't involve any risk of using a random third party app that has to be sourced from somewhere like an app store?
- ocdtrekkie 6y ago
  A file system isn't the greatest design from a security standpoint, but the Apple model is particularly limiting if, for instance, you want a library of data to be available to one app, and then later available to another app. You'll notice the iPhone cheats in this regard, by providing generic system libraries for photos and contacts, but if you say, have an ebook library, and want to switch reader apps, you'll have a bad time. It would probably be better to have a system of secure file buckets, where you could create them arbitrarily and choose to allow access to any bucket to any app, rather than permit open access to the file system as Android traditionally has done.
  - stjohnswarts 6y ago
    It would be nice if directories would allow you (via metadata?) to add an App to allowed "apps" on a per app basis, or at least let you create such a folder so that you would have to interact and opt in apps. Most users would never need it but power users certainly could use something like that.
- 1_person 6y ago
  The Cartesian product of the set of all use cases of file storage excluding those for which the iPhone does include an app; and the set of all methods that distribute the content of an app with verifiable authenticity and authorship excluding all methods which are "like an app store"
  - jodrellblank 6y ago
    You can get a good app from an original developer using an appstore. The problem you described is not that genuine developers cannot share their apps, it's that users are taken in by fake apps pretending to be genuine. If it was the norm to download a signed binary from a random website, random websites looking genuine and offering genuine fake signed binaries would be the norm. "Are you sure you want to install Adobee PhotoShop? (Signature verified!)" "No mom, Adobe PhotoShop!" "I have Abobe PhotoShop, Adode PhotoShop, Ádobe PhotoShop, PhotoStop by Adobe" "Mommmmm"

jodrellblank 6y ago

What use cases does "opening files" have which isn't addressed by iPhone's built-in apps and at the same time doesn't involve any risk of using a random third party app that has to be sourced from somewhere like an app store?

ocdtrekkie 6y ago
A file system isn't the greatest design from a security standpoint, but the Apple model is particularly limiting if, for instance, you want a library of data to be available to one app, and then later available to another app. You'll notice the iPhone cheats in this regard, by providing generic system libraries for photos and contacts, but if you say, have an ebook library, and want to switch reader apps, you'll have a bad time. It would probably be better to have a system of secure file buckets, where you could create them arbitrarily and choose to allow access to any bucket to any app, rather than permit open access to the file system as Android traditionally has done.
- stjohnswarts 6y ago
  It would be nice if directories would allow you (via metadata?) to add an App to allowed "apps" on a per app basis, or at least let you create such a folder so that you would have to interact and opt in apps. Most users would never need it but power users certainly could use something like that.
1_person 6y ago
The Cartesian product of the set of all use cases of file storage excluding those for which the iPhone does include an app; and the set of all methods that distribute the content of an app with verifiable authenticity and authorship excluding all methods which are "like an app store"
- jodrellblank 6y ago
  You can get a good app from an original developer using an appstore. The problem you described is not that genuine developers cannot share their apps, it's that users are taken in by fake apps pretending to be genuine. If it was the norm to download a signed binary from a random website, random websites looking genuine and offering genuine fake signed binaries would be the norm. "Are you sure you want to install Adobee PhotoShop? (Signature verified!)" "No mom, Adobe PhotoShop!" "I have Abobe PhotoShop, Adode PhotoShop, Ádobe PhotoShop, PhotoStop by Adobe" "Mommmmm"