“Apple tried hard — and I do mean hard — to get rid of the file system on iOS. The original model, of associating documents with the apps that created them, certainly made a lot of sense at first blush,” Dan Moren reports for Macworld. “But as people started using the iPad for more complex tasks, that document model was quickly outgrown. Now, with iOS 11, the Files app finally brings the hierarchical file system of documents and folders to iOS.”
“The ability to run more than one app at a time in the foreground was a late addition to iOS—hard as it is to believe, it only appeared in 2015’s iOS 9. But not long after that feature was welcomed with a sigh of relief, the dissatisfaction began to set in. Why was that scrolling list of apps so clumsy? Why can’t you search for apps? How come you couldn’t drag and drop between two apps?” Moren reports. “iOS 11 proposes to answer those questions, in many cases by tapping back into the Mac.”
“While the Dock is hardly new to iOS, it’s certainly never looked more Mac-like than it does in iOS 11. Apps can appear as panes that sit on top of another app, overlapping in much the same way as a window on the Mac, you might think—and you would think totally correctly,” Moren reports. “The new drag and drop feature is a Mac stalwart too. We’ve been dragging and dropping files since 1984, and it’s a little ridiculous that it’s taken this long for it to come to iOS.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: What’s more natural than dragging and dropping with your finger? It’s certainly more natural than doing so with a mouse.
With iOS 11, many people’s biggest conundrum for their next road machines went from MacBook vs. MacBook Pro to 10.5-inch iPad Pro vs. 12.9-inch iPad Pro.
Finally, the promise of iPad is realized. – SteveJack, MacDailyNews, June 5, 2017
At last a decent file app for iOS
Meh. Hierarchical file system with folders… Sooooo last century….
OTOH – Fragging and Dropping (mentioned by MDN) is a refreshing change from namby-pamby features for millenials. It’s about time that Apple gave rage and violence their due. Next, I hope they’ll consider my suggestion of a spring-loaded shuriken slot for iPhone. Strictly for self-defence, of course.
OK — the MDN take now reads dragging instead of fragging. I wonder who tipped them off. One of their interns too young to be tasked with tapping the keg, but good at proofreading?
Yes but also sooooo necessary if you want to do more with iOS than Instagram or Pokémon. Access to the filesystem *should* have been there from the start, this is a very, very welcome change.
Oh, a file system, yes. But hierarchical? That’s the last century part.
“Sooooo last century….”
Because last century very often works!
Change is good? No, good change is good change, bad change is bad change and it will always be so in the real world.
Imagine how fun drag-n-drop on iOS would be on a desktop-size 28″ iPad Pro
My wish list for iOS has included wanting file system access and hope this fixes that problem. Now we need to be able to run non-WebKit browsers, better web extensions (1 Password still is a mess on mobile Safari) and the option to force desktop websites instead of mobile ( I hate mobile optimized websites on my iPad Pro- the screen is the same size as a MacBook Pro 13).
Dream not realized. I dream of a Mac that costs no more than a top quality Wintel pc that outperforms it. IPad is still not a replacement by far, nor does Apple enable the iPad to be a great secondary touch input (such as handwriting input with character recognition on a Mac), nor are iPads easy to set up as accessory displays. Apple acts like iOS is for millenials/low end consumers, the Mac is only alive to support iOS coding, and the company will do anything to force you to subscribe to iCloud to link the two.
IOS with Mac features is nice and all but you still suffer from a dinky smudged screen and slow hardware with significant graphics limitations.
To get a lot done in a short time, some of us like dual 27 inch 4k displays. I will go with bigger displays when budget allows. I hate imprecise touch input and will never abandon the mouse.
The question is, when is Apple going to serve more demanding use cases with a desktop Mac that makes sense? Do the idiots of Cupertino expect pros to engineer a solution to add a second nonmatching display to an iMac or pay through the nose for a trashcan Mac Pro?
The iPad Pro is just another Surface with an Apple logo. If a Surface isn’t good enough for the ultraportable fanatics, what precisely do the newest ipads do better??? Don’t tell us that iOS is the superior OS because it isn’t. Mac is.
Cool dream, sugar-free chocolate ice cream that will alleviate my diabetes and cost less regular chocolate ice cream. I also dream of a part-time job that will pay me more than Bill Gates.
I always liked an idea of mouse in certain iOS device. At first, you might think that screen smudging touch screen was great. Well, it was when the first iPhone was announced. But the, as it was becoming somewhat apparent that Apple was trying to put more emphasis on iOS and merge it into mobile Mac machines, I was beginning to worry. And when size of iPhones are becoming larger, and Apple was implementing ridiculous reachability, it was the time to consider some sort of mouse into iOS. You no longer be able to touch and slide your fingers around entire screen real estate. Mouse has been able to go to any size of screen with just tiny movement. One solution? Optical trackpad like Blackberry has been using for years. It is so tiny but it will enable you to reach every corner of the screen with just a tiny movement of your thumb, rather than re-positioning your grip, reachability and all that. It would be nice if this tiny trackpad (may be 5mm square?) could be embedded into home button.If it’s too much for the home button (with finger ID etc), I do not mind a separate trackpad right next to the home button. You know how convenient it is to be able to move keyboard cursor on 3D touch models.
” IPad is still not a replacement by far”
Absolutely true, mine is really just an entertainment delivering device, thats the nature of the apps and the nature of 90% of the buyers.
Deal with it.
How about real print drivers? When it comes to printer functionality, AirPrint is pretty limited. Even lightweight print drivers for frequently used printers would be a significant improvement,
Code convergence, indeed. It does seem that, by the time iOS and macOS have truly merged (AppleOS, dare I say), a touch screen Mac will finally make sense, as the OS will truly be ready for it and not some makeshift version of macOS touch or some crap.
Touch screen apps only make sense for very elementary standardized functions for cubicle workers and people out in the field who are filling out standardized forms, and maybe some very elementary standardized creative functions. And tablet drawing apps with a pen.
“Standardized Creative” Isn’t that a contradiction in terms? Yes it is! That’s my point.
Absolutely right on drag and drop, always seemed ludicrous to rely so heavily on menus to do things that using your finger was so much more logical a tool expecially when the computer interface where it is far less logical has relied upon it for years.