3 ms·

I've never liked the idea of files "belonging" to apps, for numerous reasons. It strikes me as an irreversible institutionalization of the "WIMP" model -- "weak

by api 12y ago

I've never liked the idea of files "belonging" to apps, for numerous reasons. It strikes me as an irreversible institutionalization of the "WIMP" model -- "weakly interacting massive programs." It also makes me uneasy. What happens to my data if I uninstall an app? What happens if that app disappears? A lot of the data handling choices in mobile and iOS in particular seem predicated on the hidden assumption that user data is not very valuable. Hell will freeze over before I use one of these platforms for anything I deeply care about. ... yet another reason mobile has a ways to go before it can "take over the world."

Logmix 12y ago
That's very well put. If you uninstall an app, all its data is gone. Unless you stored that data somewhere else of course, but the main thing is how Apple approaches data storage is not very professional or confidence inspiring. For me this awkward storage makes it difficult to take the device seriously. I don't consider the iPad a work device, more of a device to surf the net on the couch. In Q4 2014, iPad sales were down year over year from 14M to 12M. Maybe other people are starting to think along the same lines? The sad part is that this does not have to be that way. The iPad has more than enough resources to be a fully functional computing device. But until Apple grows up and removes all those mandatory training wheels (can't develop equal citizen apps on the device itself and give it to anybody I like without Apple having the power to party pooping any of it), I don't consider iPad + iPhone real computers.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- api 12y ago
  "The iPad has more than enough resources to be a fully functional computing device." The thing preventing mobile "convergence" is not hardware capability and never really has been except at the high end. Mobile won't displace PC due to design choices that firmly exclude whole application categories. These include what we're discussing here, as well as jailed app stores and other policies. A lot of people assume mobile is "the next platform," etc. based on what I consider to be faulty reasoning by analogy with the PC's displacement of mainframes and minis. The PC displaced mainframes and minis due to Moore's Law and economies of scale. Those same forces are in effect in mobile, sure, but there are other barriers in effect that are completely unrelated to CPU power or cost that will prevent this displacement from occurring. Whenever I talk to valley people I feel like an atheist at a tent revival for questioning the idea that mobile is categorically "the future." It could be if it wanted to, but it'd have to fix some of its problems.
  - Htsthbjig 12y ago
    "A lot of people assume mobile is "the next platform," etc." based on what I consider to be faulty reasoning by analogy with the PC's displacement of mainframes and minis. The PC displaced mainframes and minis due to Moore's Law and economies of scale. Those same forces are in effect in mobile, sure, but there are other barriers in effect that are completely unrelated to CPU power or cost that will prevent this displacement from occurring." I was one of those in the past, now it is just obvious, just look at the number of mobile devices out there compared to PCs. The fact that you don't like it does not make it less true. Old people said the same about the command line, it was never going to be replaced for real work. You assume that current restrictions will be maintained in the future. I don't think so. Apple was right and created a product useful for many common people. Programmers and power users believed that it was not necessary because they were fine and frankly because knowledge gave them power over them. I am using Ubuntu on a tablet and I like it. It is coming slowly but it will be possible to create much more content on tablets that on pcs.
    - api 12y ago
      The instant I walk into a company and see people working on mobile devices instead of PCs, I will change my mind. I don't mean trivial bits of work like note taking... I mean real work: CAD, coding, devops, serious spreadsheet/accounting work, graphic design, etc. Show me SolidWorks, Eclipse, Excel, or Creative Suite -- or equivalents -- on an iOS or Android device. Ubuntu on a tablet is a bad example. You're running a PC OS on a tablet. For 99.9999% of users mobile = iOS or Android. I'm talking about platform here, not just hardware. I could run Ubuntu on an old Samsung Galaxy and hack a way to connect it to a monitor, but then it would be a PC in a small box not a "mobile device." "Old people said the same about the command line, it was never going to be replaced for real work." They were right. Leave "old" out of it. When I was a teenager I was a Linux head. I remember my dad telling me that stuff was stupid, since GUIs were going to replace everything. I told him (then about 40) that you'd never replace a command line with a GUI for all kinds of tasks. I was absolutely right. It's 2014 and you still can barely script a GUI. Doing devops type work on a GUI is from painful to impossible except in a few very niche areas. "You assume that current restrictions will be maintained in the future. I don't think so." I'll believe it when I see it. Apple in particular has no incentive to change. They love all that app store revenue, and they also have no incentive to make iOS a PC competitor since it would cannibalize their Mac platform sales. Then there's the fact that the security problems that the app store model avoids have not actually been solved. Decouple mobile from app stores and you'll have a malware explosion. Mobile is just a new platform. It's fantastic for a lot of things the old platforms aren't good at, but it's not going to displace old ones except at the edges. It's no more likely to displace the PC than it is to displace the server. What we're seeing is a filling-in and diversification of computing, not a displacement story.
lochlainn 12y ago
I think a lot of it stems from an attempt at simplicity in design. At the time, Windows Mobile was offering a fully customizable filesystem, but Apple wanted to go the route of simplicity when they introduced Apps with iOS2. You tap on them and they work, delete them when you don't want them, etc. Everything is so isolated as a result, and combined with the lack of any sort of Downloads or file creation in the traditional sense, it sort of makes you feel like the data of your apps is stored in really remote, weird locations you can't ever access. Simplicity like that was part of what made people think not just of productivity but also of fun when they looked at a smartphone imo. Still not very fun to deal with. (Never write a document on your phone. It's not worth it)
- api 12y ago
  Makes me think of a quote from another recent HN front page article on Docker vs. CoreOS and the idea of "simplicity" in the enterprise. I think it's relevant here. "You can't avoid complexity by pretending it doesn't exist." There's a lot of complexity and nuance around the handling of files. Mobile likes to pretend it doesn't exist, and the result is file handling choices that treat user data contemptuously and do not allow any kind of workflow whatsoever. This is one of several very significant reasons mobile in its present form will never displace PC except for low-end use cases.
userbinator 12y ago
A lot of the data handling choices in mobile and iOS in particular seem predicated on the hidden assumption that user data is not very valuable. No, I think it's predicated on the assumption that user data is very valuable --- to the companies that inevitably try to mine and monetise it --- that freedom should be taken away from the users and the platform should provide developers with as much control over the users' data as possible. It's an ongoing movement to lock down devices against the user; to turn general-purpose computers into restricted environments for consumption and very little creation. No doubt the media companies' DRM interests are partially responsible for this. Even the concept of a file as an application-neutral container for data is being slowly obfuscated away by this movement, as users are gradually conditioned to open apps first, and then open their data from them. I think one of my biggest surprises upon using an Android smartphone for the first time was discovering that it didn't even have a rudimentary text editor by default (something that I was accustomed to on every other OS), nor could the standard file manager view text files although it could view movies, pictures, and music. As I understand it, the iOS situation is even more restricted than that, with not even a file manager provided as part of the OS. As another datapoint, I've encountered quite a few beginning computer science students who didn't really know what a file is, and were quite amazed that multiple applications could work with the same files.
- api 12y ago
  "No doubt the media companies' DRM interests are partially responsible for this." I think there's some truth in this, but you're wrong here. The problem isn't DRM, but what DRM is (impotently) reacting against. This is the fault of the culture of "free." If people are not willing to pay for stuff, then the model must be turned around and the user monetized exactly as you describe. That's because nothing is actually free. Everything costs money and someone has to pay. If it's not users it must be advertisers, governments, etc. Free "as in beer" is a socially destructive idea and is the enemy of free "as in freedom." Edit: bring on the downvotes! Doesn't change the facts. If you don't pay, you are not a customer.
  - FeeTinesAMady 12y ago
    I'm not sure how much I agree with what you're saying, but I don't think you should be downvoted for it, so I gave you an upvote.

by api 12y ago

Logmix 12y ago

That's very well put. If you uninstall an app, all its data is gone. Unless you stored that data somewhere else of course, but the main thing is how Apple approaches data storage is not very professional or confidence inspiring. For me this awkward storage makes it difficult to take the device seriously. I don't consider the iPad a work device, more of a device to surf the net on the couch. In Q4 2014, iPad sales were down year over year from 14M to 12M. Maybe other people are starting to think along the same lines? The sad part is that this does not have to be that way. The iPad has more than enough resources to be a fully functional computing device. But until Apple grows up and removes all those mandatory training wheels (can't develop equal citizen apps on the device itself and give it to anybody I like without Apple having the power to party pooping any of it), I don't consider iPad + iPhone real computers.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
api 12y ago
"The iPad has more than enough resources to be a fully functional computing device." The thing preventing mobile "convergence" is not hardware capability and never really has been except at the high end. Mobile won't displace PC due to design choices that firmly exclude whole application categories. These include what we're discussing here, as well as jailed app stores and other policies. A lot of people assume mobile is "the next platform," etc. based on what I consider to be faulty reasoning by analogy with the PC's displacement of mainframes and minis. The PC displaced mainframes and minis due to Moore's Law and economies of scale. Those same forces are in effect in mobile, sure, but there are other barriers in effect that are completely unrelated to CPU power or cost that will prevent this displacement from occurring. Whenever I talk to valley people I feel like an atheist at a tent revival for questioning the idea that mobile is categorically "the future." It could be if it wanted to, but it'd have to fix some of its problems.
- Htsthbjig 12y ago
  "A lot of people assume mobile is "the next platform," etc." based on what I consider to be faulty reasoning by analogy with the PC's displacement of mainframes and minis. The PC displaced mainframes and minis due to Moore's Law and economies of scale. Those same forces are in effect in mobile, sure, but there are other barriers in effect that are completely unrelated to CPU power or cost that will prevent this displacement from occurring." I was one of those in the past, now it is just obvious, just look at the number of mobile devices out there compared to PCs. The fact that you don't like it does not make it less true. Old people said the same about the command line, it was never going to be replaced for real work. You assume that current restrictions will be maintained in the future. I don't think so. Apple was right and created a product useful for many common people. Programmers and power users believed that it was not necessary because they were fine and frankly because knowledge gave them power over them. I am using Ubuntu on a tablet and I like it. It is coming slowly but it will be possible to create much more content on tablets that on pcs.
  - api 12y ago
    The instant I walk into a company and see people working on mobile devices instead of PCs, I will change my mind. I don't mean trivial bits of work like note taking... I mean real work: CAD, coding, devops, serious spreadsheet/accounting work, graphic design, etc. Show me SolidWorks, Eclipse, Excel, or Creative Suite -- or equivalents -- on an iOS or Android device. Ubuntu on a tablet is a bad example. You're running a PC OS on a tablet. For 99.9999% of users mobile = iOS or Android. I'm talking about platform here, not just hardware. I could run Ubuntu on an old Samsung Galaxy and hack a way to connect it to a monitor, but then it would be a PC in a small box not a "mobile device." "Old people said the same about the command line, it was never going to be replaced for real work." They were right. Leave "old" out of it. When I was a teenager I was a Linux head. I remember my dad telling me that stuff was stupid, since GUIs were going to replace everything. I told him (then about 40) that you'd never replace a command line with a GUI for all kinds of tasks. I was absolutely right. It's 2014 and you still can barely script a GUI. Doing devops type work on a GUI is from painful to impossible except in a few very niche areas. "You assume that current restrictions will be maintained in the future. I don't think so." I'll believe it when I see it. Apple in particular has no incentive to change. They love all that app store revenue, and they also have no incentive to make iOS a PC competitor since it would cannibalize their Mac platform sales. Then there's the fact that the security problems that the app store model avoids have not actually been solved. Decouple mobile from app stores and you'll have a malware explosion. Mobile is just a new platform. It's fantastic for a lot of things the old platforms aren't good at, but it's not going to displace old ones except at the edges. It's no more likely to displace the PC than it is to displace the server. What we're seeing is a filling-in and diversification of computing, not a displacement story.

lochlainn 12y ago

I think a lot of it stems from an attempt at simplicity in design. At the time, Windows Mobile was offering a fully customizable filesystem, but Apple wanted to go the route of simplicity when they introduced Apps with iOS2. You tap on them and they work, delete them when you don't want them, etc. Everything is so isolated as a result, and combined with the lack of any sort of Downloads or file creation in the traditional sense, it sort of makes you feel like the data of your apps is stored in really remote, weird locations you can't ever access. Simplicity like that was part of what made people think not just of productivity but also of fun when they looked at a smartphone imo. Still not very fun to deal with. (Never write a document on your phone. It's not worth it)

api 12y ago
Makes me think of a quote from another recent HN front page article on Docker vs. CoreOS and the idea of "simplicity" in the enterprise. I think it's relevant here. "You can't avoid complexity by pretending it doesn't exist." There's a lot of complexity and nuance around the handling of files. Mobile likes to pretend it doesn't exist, and the result is file handling choices that treat user data contemptuously and do not allow any kind of workflow whatsoever. This is one of several very significant reasons mobile in its present form will never displace PC except for low-end use cases.

userbinator 12y ago

A lot of the data handling choices in mobile and iOS in particular seem predicated on the hidden assumption that user data is not very valuable. No, I think it's predicated on the assumption that user data is very valuable --- to the companies that inevitably try to mine and monetise it --- that freedom should be taken away from the users and the platform should provide developers with as much control over the users' data as possible. It's an ongoing movement to lock down devices against the user; to turn general-purpose computers into restricted environments for consumption and very little creation. No doubt the media companies' DRM interests are partially responsible for this. Even the concept of a file as an application-neutral container for data is being slowly obfuscated away by this movement, as users are gradually conditioned to open apps first, and then open their data from them. I think one of my biggest surprises upon using an Android smartphone for the first time was discovering that it didn't even have a rudimentary text editor by default (something that I was accustomed to on every other OS), nor could the standard file manager view text files although it could view movies, pictures, and music. As I understand it, the iOS situation is even more restricted than that, with not even a file manager provided as part of the OS. As another datapoint, I've encountered quite a few beginning computer science students who didn't really know what a file is, and were quite amazed that multiple applications could work with the same files.

api 12y ago
"No doubt the media companies' DRM interests are partially responsible for this." I think there's some truth in this, but you're wrong here. The problem isn't DRM, but what DRM is (impotently) reacting against. This is the fault of the culture of "free." If people are not willing to pay for stuff, then the model must be turned around and the user monetized exactly as you describe. That's because nothing is actually free. Everything costs money and someone has to pay. If it's not users it must be advertisers, governments, etc. Free "as in beer" is a socially destructive idea and is the enemy of free "as in freedom." Edit: bring on the downvotes! Doesn't change the facts. If you don't pay, you are not a customer.
- FeeTinesAMady 12y ago
  I'm not sure how much I agree with what you're saying, but I don't think you should be downvoted for it, so I gave you an upvote.