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Android has direct filesystem access, but I can't think of the last time I ever used it. The "sharing" mechanism provides a much nicer experience than forcing t

Android has direct filesystem access, but I can't think of the last time I ever used it. The "sharing" mechanism provides a much nicer experience than forcing the user to fumble around in a tree abstraction that hasn't changed in ~40 years. I eagerly await the day when filenames become completely opaque identifiers, never exposed in the UI. iOS's problem is that there is no standardized way for third-party apps to allow other apps access to a particular document. That's what the OP is actually asking for. Just because desktops have historically implemented this feature as an N-ary tree of (string, blob) pairs doesn't matter.

seppo0010 14y ago
Android's data provider interfaces are so neat on this subject. I can't believe iOS did not implement anything like it yet.
- shawn-butler 14y ago
  If you mean ContentProvider [0] that is really only useful for highly structured data. Falls apart pretty quickly for non-relational data files and documents as well as media, or do you have some counter examples I could consider? [0]: http://developer.android.com/reference/android/content/ContentProvider.html http://developer.android.com/reference/android/content/Conte...
  - seppo0010 14y ago
    That is what I meant. Can you explain why in falls apart?
Negitivefrags 14y ago
There seems to be a prevailing attitude among some that the "users" don't like trees of files and we should all move to something more advanced. It has always seemed weird to me. Is something being 40 years old make it bad? Humans naturally like to put things in hierarchies. It is a very well understood concept by everyone.
- petsos 14y ago
  > It is a very well understood concept by everyone. No it is not.
  - Negitivefrags 14y ago
    People can navigate a web page. They can find a food item in a menu or in the supermarket. There are a million examples. Hierarchical navigation is central to living in society.
    - danilocampos 14y ago
      The quibble isn't with the hierarchies. It's with the navigation. The point is that some do not enjoy navigating anything, hierarchical or not. That's why librarians' assistants have jobs. So if you have a magical medium where information can be abstracted behind any means of retrieval, you give the apes what they want: their bananas in a pile, instead of in tiny, head-scratch-inducing drawers.
    - ghshephard 14y ago
      The vast majority of computer users (outside of knowledge workers, and techies) are completely befuddled by hierarchial navigation. Eliminating it was one of the great steps forward on the iPhone.
      - chii 14y ago
        you can tell someone's orientation towards hierachical file systems by how they normally put their files right now. I observed two different distinct species - one will just dump everything into the desktop (or the My Documents) folder. The other will place all of their files in subdirectories, or sub-sub directories, in a very organized manner. If you look at their real life organization techniques, it would very likely be the same.
    - wandermatt 14y ago
      If someone is able to purchase food at a supermarket does it follow that this same individual cannot also have difficulty understanding a hierarchical filesystem?
yareally 14y ago
Filesystem is mostly useful for a number of cases (though perhaps not the average person), but I am glad it's there and one can access external storage or /system (read only) without root. It's pretty useful for the following conditions: 1) root users that want move around and change config files (boot animations, system wide theming, etc). Also for flashing stuff in recovery where you need to point to the file you want. 2) ROM modders/developers - looking at various files live on the device and also for low level things such as filesystem access in recovery to get yourself out of a jam. 3) app developers - I like to use sftp on my device and sshfs on my pc to directly access sqlite dbs for apps I am working on and play with the db directly without having to reinstall the app to update it. 4) Those that want apps that obey filesystem rules versus global (like for a music player, I use one that reads by directory instead of just dumping everything in by tags).
jimmaswell 14y ago
I use Android's filesystem to move files from SD to internal or reverse, from the downloads folder to more appropriate categorized folders, and to find files to delete for more room. I appreciate having this ability a lot. Things like this should just be standard for any OS. I also open some local html files with file:// on firefox mobile sometimes.
kaiwen1 14y ago
That's correct. I'm not advocating a tree-based file system. I'm advocating a shared file system. If that system improves on the tree, I'm all for it.
shawn-butler 14y ago
Isn't this exactly what UIDocumentInteractionController, etc accomplishes? [0] Each application registers the data types for which it is a "viewer". Application with the content provides a way to open the document interaction controller with reference to the document, iOS supplies icons of apps that can open it, user selects app and it opens with a different launch options so it opens the content directly. There is nothing more fine-grained than file-type but mime-types, win32 registry keys, etc have always just been conventions really outside of a few well-known types. BFS (beos) tried to add in metadata attributes to the filesystem and it was pretty slick, admittedly. I guess I can kind of see the complaint about wasting space on duplicates but if one app is a viewer, and the other is an editor... well I think the OP comment is kind or obtuse. Sandboxing files is a much better approach for lots of reasons. Apple made the right decision, let each application organize access to its information in the way it best sees fit. If it's a tree view, ok if it is some skeumorphic bookshelf, ok. [0]: http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/UIKit/Reference/UIDocumentInteractionController_class/Reference/Reference.html http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/UIKit/...

seppo0010 14y ago

Android's data provider interfaces are so neat on this subject. I can't believe iOS did not implement anything like it yet.

shawn-butler 14y ago
If you mean ContentProvider [0] that is really only useful for highly structured data. Falls apart pretty quickly for non-relational data files and documents as well as media, or do you have some counter examples I could consider? [0]: http://developer.android.com/reference/android/content/ContentProvider.html http://developer.android.com/reference/android/content/Conte...
- seppo0010 14y ago
  That is what I meant. Can you explain why in falls apart?

Negitivefrags 14y ago

There seems to be a prevailing attitude among some that the "users" don't like trees of files and we should all move to something more advanced. It has always seemed weird to me. Is something being 40 years old make it bad? Humans naturally like to put things in hierarchies. It is a very well understood concept by everyone.

petsos 14y ago
> It is a very well understood concept by everyone. No it is not.
- Negitivefrags 14y ago
  People can navigate a web page. They can find a food item in a menu or in the supermarket. There are a million examples. Hierarchical navigation is central to living in society.
  - danilocampos 14y ago
    The quibble isn't with the hierarchies. It's with the navigation. The point is that some do not enjoy navigating anything, hierarchical or not. That's why librarians' assistants have jobs. So if you have a magical medium where information can be abstracted behind any means of retrieval, you give the apes what they want: their bananas in a pile, instead of in tiny, head-scratch-inducing drawers.
  - ghshephard 14y ago
    The vast majority of computer users (outside of knowledge workers, and techies) are completely befuddled by hierarchial navigation. Eliminating it was one of the great steps forward on the iPhone.
    - chii 14y ago
      you can tell someone's orientation towards hierachical file systems by how they normally put their files right now. I observed two different distinct species - one will just dump everything into the desktop (or the My Documents) folder. The other will place all of their files in subdirectories, or sub-sub directories, in a very organized manner. If you look at their real life organization techniques, it would very likely be the same.
  - wandermatt 14y ago
    If someone is able to purchase food at a supermarket does it follow that this same individual cannot also have difficulty understanding a hierarchical filesystem?

yareally 14y ago

Filesystem is mostly useful for a number of cases (though perhaps not the average person), but I am glad it's there and one can access external storage or /system (read only) without root. It's pretty useful for the following conditions: 1) root users that want move around and change config files (boot animations, system wide theming, etc). Also for flashing stuff in recovery where you need to point to the file you want. 2) ROM modders/developers - looking at various files live on the device and also for low level things such as filesystem access in recovery to get yourself out of a jam. 3) app developers - I like to use sftp on my device and sshfs on my pc to directly access sqlite dbs for apps I am working on and play with the db directly without having to reinstall the app to update it. 4) Those that want apps that obey filesystem rules versus global (like for a music player, I use one that reads by directory instead of just dumping everything in by tags).

jimmaswell 14y ago

I use Android's filesystem to move files from SD to internal or reverse, from the downloads folder to more appropriate categorized folders, and to find files to delete for more room. I appreciate having this ability a lot. Things like this should just be standard for any OS. I also open some local html files with file:// on firefox mobile sometimes.

kaiwen1 14y ago

That's correct. I'm not advocating a tree-based file system. I'm advocating a shared file system. If that system improves on the tree, I'm all for it.

shawn-butler 14y ago

Isn't this exactly what UIDocumentInteractionController, etc accomplishes? [0] Each application registers the data types for which it is a "viewer". Application with the content provides a way to open the document interaction controller with reference to the document, iOS supplies icons of apps that can open it, user selects app and it opens with a different launch options so it opens the content directly. There is nothing more fine-grained than file-type but mime-types, win32 registry keys, etc have always just been conventions really outside of a few well-known types. BFS (beos) tried to add in metadata attributes to the filesystem and it was pretty slick, admittedly. I guess I can kind of see the complaint about wasting space on duplicates but if one app is a viewer, and the other is an editor... well I think the OP comment is kind or obtuse. Sandboxing files is a much better approach for lots of reasons. Apple made the right decision, let each application organize access to its information in the way it best sees fit. If it's a tree view, ok if it is some skeumorphic bookshelf, ok. [0]: http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/UIKit/Reference/UIDocumentInteractionController_class/Reference/Reference.html http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/UIKit/...