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This is a weak analysis. There are large numbers of ‘shoebox’ style applications which pre-date iOS, and they exist on every platform. It’s a mistake to attri

by zepto 5y ago

This is a weak analysis. There are large numbers of ‘shoebox’ style applications which pre-date iOS, and they exist on every platform. It’s a mistake to attribute their existence to iOS. The point of a shoebox app is decouple the user model of organization of data from the file system model even as files are used for storage. This is done because the filesystem user model is inadequate or inappropriate, or because the storage model is expected to change. iOS allows apps to expose their data as files within the Files app without requiring them to expose the underlying files themselves. A good example of this is Quip, which is a collaborative document editor. All of Quip’s data is stored in their online database, but it is also exposed through the files app as a set of PDFs. Notes could expose a filesystem style view if Apple prioritized it. Of course then we’d have the issue of file format versioning etc. to deal with. If I were them I wouldn’t be rushing to make that trade-off.

rektide 5y ago
> This is done because the filesystem user model is inadequate or inappropriate, or because the storage model is expected to change. This is a weak analysis. I agree reasonably with your overall point, that this isn't entirely iOS's fault. But I see no evidence or cause to believe any of the alternate anti-file approaches have anything better to offer, present better. You yourself argue that better interfaces are presentable atop the filesystem interface, so it's obviously not a limiting factor in data-representation & data-modelling. Rather, to me, I see cloudification requiring adaption. Files didn't apply, weren't connected, where-as the digital entities we we began trying to work with were connected, cross-system. That doesn't outmode the filesystem, but it does require adaption & reconsideration. It requires connecting. It requires going further. I'd point out that we have no replacement for the filesystem. There's no words, no descriptor we can use to describe the alternate, the pervasive, cloudy objects that we interact with everywhere. There's nothing generic, or user-manageable that's replaced the idea of the file. Files were a convenient reification of the digital to sacrifice, to make computing harder, and because we didn't know how to make the notion of a file more online.
- zepto 5y ago
  > But I see no evidence or cause to believe any of the alternate anti-file approaches have anything better to offer, present better. I think it’s fairly clear that the iOS photos app is easier to navigate than a folder with tens of thousands of files. Even the notes app presents the notes in a more useful way than a folder would. Other obvious examples are things like notion or roam research, or any number of systems where the file metaphor just isn’t natural. Many people today use a web browser to view pages of text and multimedia connected via hyperlinks. This technology hides the underlying implementation which may be files, or may be databases or other kinds of store. It is more successful than the earlier file based protocols such as FTP and Gopher. > I'd point out that we have no replacement for the filesystem. It’s not clear what this is supposed to mean. We have many other kinds of data store, e.g. relational databases, graph database, time series databases etc.
  - rektide 5y ago
    >> I'd point out that we have no replacement for the filesystem. > It’s not clear what this is supposed to mean. i was super clear. what else have we presented users as a consistent cross system abstraction/means to handle data? nothing. you have nothing. i dont understand your arguments on ios photos or notes. google photos is one big folder full of files, and some photos can be tagged or organized. this would fit into either a filed symlinking paradigm or a use of extended attributes. i have zero clue ehy you think these apps are anything other than files and folders, but obfuscated.
    - zepto 5y ago
      > i was super clear. what else have we presented users as a consistent cross system abstraction/means to handle data? nothing. you have nothing. The web. > i dont understand your arguments on ios photos or notes. google photos is one big folder full of files, and some photos can be tagged or organized. this would fit into either a filed symlinking paradigm or a use of extended attributes. i have zero clue ehy you think these apps are anything other than files and folders, but obfuscated. I have never used or mentioned Google photos. It sounds like you haven’t looked at iOS photos, which is what I mentioned. If you had you would never claim that extended attributes or symlinking would replace the experience. You also simply ignored the other examples, like notion, or roam research. None of these things are done better by simply having folders full of files. If files were better, that’s what we’d be using, since we had networked filesystems before we had the web.

by zepto 5y ago

rektide 5y ago

> This is done because the filesystem user model is inadequate or inappropriate, or because the storage model is expected to change. This is a weak analysis. I agree reasonably with your overall point, that this isn't entirely iOS's fault. But I see no evidence or cause to believe any of the alternate anti-file approaches have anything better to offer, present better. You yourself argue that better interfaces are presentable atop the filesystem interface, so it's obviously not a limiting factor in data-representation & data-modelling. Rather, to me, I see cloudification requiring adaption. Files didn't apply, weren't connected, where-as the digital entities we we began trying to work with were connected, cross-system. That doesn't outmode the filesystem, but it does require adaption & reconsideration. It requires connecting. It requires going further. I'd point out that we have no replacement for the filesystem. There's no words, no descriptor we can use to describe the alternate, the pervasive, cloudy objects that we interact with everywhere. There's nothing generic, or user-manageable that's replaced the idea of the file. Files were a convenient reification of the digital to sacrifice, to make computing harder, and because we didn't know how to make the notion of a file more online.

zepto 5y ago
> But I see no evidence or cause to believe any of the alternate anti-file approaches have anything better to offer, present better. I think it’s fairly clear that the iOS photos app is easier to navigate than a folder with tens of thousands of files. Even the notes app presents the notes in a more useful way than a folder would. Other obvious examples are things like notion or roam research, or any number of systems where the file metaphor just isn’t natural. Many people today use a web browser to view pages of text and multimedia connected via hyperlinks. This technology hides the underlying implementation which may be files, or may be databases or other kinds of store. It is more successful than the earlier file based protocols such as FTP and Gopher. > I'd point out that we have no replacement for the filesystem. It’s not clear what this is supposed to mean. We have many other kinds of data store, e.g. relational databases, graph database, time series databases etc.
- rektide 5y ago
  >> I'd point out that we have no replacement for the filesystem. > It’s not clear what this is supposed to mean. i was super clear. what else have we presented users as a consistent cross system abstraction/means to handle data? nothing. you have nothing. i dont understand your arguments on ios photos or notes. google photos is one big folder full of files, and some photos can be tagged or organized. this would fit into either a filed symlinking paradigm or a use of extended attributes. i have zero clue ehy you think these apps are anything other than files and folders, but obfuscated.
  - zepto 5y ago
    > i was super clear. what else have we presented users as a consistent cross system abstraction/means to handle data? nothing. you have nothing. The web. > i dont understand your arguments on ios photos or notes. google photos is one big folder full of files, and some photos can be tagged or organized. this would fit into either a filed symlinking paradigm or a use of extended attributes. i have zero clue ehy you think these apps are anything other than files and folders, but obfuscated. I have never used or mentioned Google photos. It sounds like you haven’t looked at iOS photos, which is what I mentioned. If you had you would never claim that extended attributes or symlinking would replace the experience. You also simply ignored the other examples, like notion, or roam research. None of these things are done better by simply having folders full of files. If files were better, that’s what we’d be using, since we had networked filesystems before we had the web.