You knew this was coming, right?
For years and years and years and years and years and years now I've begged and pleaded for two things — a Files.app repository and DocumentPicker API from Apple to make iOS file management easier. Last year, with iOS 8, Apple provided the DocumentPicker as part of iCloud Drive. This year, with iOS 9, I hope they finally provide Files.app as well.
Last year I called the lack of Files.app and DocumentPicker "one of the biggest, most frustrating holes remaining on Apple's mobile operating system, and all the more so because it seems like a model for fixing it has been in successful use for years already."
A lot of that had to do with "app jails", or files locked within specific apps, inaccessible any other way. DocumentPicker solved that, making files available to any app that called it up the iCloud Drive interface.
The problem now is that we still need an arbitrary app to call up the iCloud Drive interface.
What we have now is analogous to Photos.app and ImagePicker, sans Photos.app. Instead of being able to open a single app and browser all our pictures, we have to go find an App Store app that'll let us browse them.
It's fine if your brain only ever works in an app-centric way. "I wrote my article in TextEdit, I am going to go to TextEdit and open my article". It's less fine if your brain works in a file-centric way. "I wrote my article, I'm going to go to my article and open it in whatever app will let me open it... Hey, TextEdit!"
Both are valid mental models, and supporting both makes files more accessible for everyone.
In a world with Files.app, that's what I could do. I could go to TextEdit, open DocumentPicker, and choose my article. I could also go to Files.app, search for my article, and then use "Open in..." to pick TextEdit or any other text editing app.
Or, you know, just search in an updated Spotlight that can see into DocumentPicker.
It's not a filesystem any more than Photos.app is a filesystem. It's a repository, a view, a way to sanely and safely present all documents in iCloud Drive in a way that empowers people.
Apple, rightly, prides itself on privacy and security. Every app exists in a sandbox and every file exists in the sandbox of the app that created it. In order for iCloud Drive and DocumentPicker to work, the system carefully and considerately moves data between apps.
Files.app would be an Apple app, however, which could ensure a high level of privacy and security for files. A "Do you want to grant NewApp permission to access your files?" could further ensure both and and make any openings in the sandbox the result of direct user interactions, the same way Camera Roll access is handled today.
Thanks to Extensibility, you could also share directly from Files.app to any app or service that supports it. So if all you know is you have to get file A to destination B, you know you're only ever one Files launch and couple of taps away. That's remarkably less mental overhead.
It wouldn't be a file system because it would avoid the hierarchy and complexity of the traditional file system. It would also avoid the complexity of not having a file system.
It would be a repository, much like Photos, much like Passbook, much like Health. And it would be important to a great many people, personally and professionally, and they need and deserve time and attention on iOS.
We've gotten our redesign. We've gotten our functionality increase. The iPhone and the iPad are light and powerful beyond our dreams. They are becoming our primary computer platforms. They are the glass through which we are viewing the connected world.
iOS 8 got us part of the way there. It gave us DocumentPicker and iCloud Drive. It made it so that our iPhones and our iPads are no longer terrible at something as important as file handling.
Now we just need iOS 9 to get us the rest of the way home. We just need iCloud Drive surfaced in a consistent place so we can get to it, and our documents, whenever we want or need to.
We just need Files.app
This feature request has been submitted as a feature request to Apple as rdar://19933856.
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