The iPad has the possibility to radically change how people use and think of computers over the years to come and I’m not just talking about touch-screen technology. Sure, touch-screen technology in this large of a form-factor is going to allow for some really new interfaces, but I think there is a greater shift working behind the scenes.
One of the changes we’re seeing, first with the iPhone and now with the iPad, is the removal of the file system (at least to the end-user). With any traditional PC when you boot up the first thing you’re presented with is your file system. All your apps are (sometimes) neatly stored in one folder, your documents, photos, downloads in others. You use Finder or Explorer to navigate to the document or application you want to launch and go from there. Of course there are things in place to simplify getting to what we want, like the start menu or dock, but you still need to be aware of the file system.
But as it’s been said elsewhere, to most people the concept of a file system just makes no sense. Sure to people like me, and probably you, using a file system is a very natural thing. But we aren’t the norm. I can’t count the number of times I’ve gone over to my parents to do a little tech support and been shocked by just how messy their desktop, download, or document folder was; three copies of installers for apps in the downloads folder, a mess of documents on their desktop that really should be under ~/Documents instead. The mess of course wasn’t their fault, they just don’t get the concept of keeping a file system organized. That kind of stuff just doesn’t matter to them—they want to log on, install app X, edit document Y, do their work and be done with it.
This changes on the iPhone OS. Every app runs within a sandbox: it has it’s own set of documents, settings, etc, but it can’t access the documents in another app. There is a wall between every app. Part of this was implemented for security reasons, now apps can’t hurt each other or delete other stuff they shouldn’t have access too. But it also simplifies some tasks. When you want to install an app you just do—no installer, no .DMG file. When you want to delete an app and all it’s stuff just tap-and-hold then click the little X. So much easier to manage.
It shifts the iPhone/iPad to be more app-centric rather than document centric. You don’t go into your documents and find that Numbers file you were working on. You launch numbers and you see a list of your Numbers documents. No more “oh where did I save that file to…” problems.
I for one welcome the death of the file system on mainstream computers. Especially ones my parents use.
This has a setback though, one I can only assume the brains at Apple are aware of, and hopefully working on (maybe with the iPhone OS 4.0 release?). This wall between the apps makes it harder to move documents between them. Each app has to be able to email or export its own files. Email seems to be the popular method to move things around at the moment. It worked great on the iPhone because no one really used the iPhone as their main computer—exporting was always to get it back to their desktop. But the iPad can (or will over time) replace said desktop for many people and now you have to be able to move documents between apps.
Apple started to address this with their media browser. All the apps they have save images into the Photos app. And any app can use the media browser to get to that store of photos. So right now it’s really easy to move an image from the internet into Pages on the iPad. Try to move anything else around and you’ll soon hit a dead-end. What happens if I get a bunch of documents into an app that I later want to switch away from (media-format combadability aside)? If it doesn’t have an export feature I’m screwed. Even if it does I can email them to myself, but it isn’t like Mail supports an “open with” option to tell it to open in the new app.
It’s a tricky problem that they’ll have to solve at some point I think. But in the mean time I think the direction they’re taking things is a net win for the majority of computer users.
