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To move a file to a USB stick, you could either have an app that works like Finder, showing you which pictures, documents and so on that you have on your computer, or you could export the file from whichever app you're working on it in.

And suddenly we've gone full circle, and now come back to having a visible file section.
 
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I'm talking about how iOS acts. Thats really what this is at this point.

I think obviously OS X (or XI) will need to be a bit more advanced that its mobile counterpart, but I think building from a base of no visible files would, eventually, be easier for the user.
 
And suddenly we've gone full circle, and now come back to having a visible file section.

Having a "file export app", or whatever you want to call it, doesn't mean that you have access to the file structure of your computer.

Compare it to iPhoto. You have events, you have albums, but you don't have access to the file structure. Well, unless you go into finder and show package content. But it's the general idea.

Letting the end user have direct access to the file structure is something that will disappear, just as certain as the possibility to access it will never disappear.
 
Compare it to iPhoto. You have events, you have albums, but you don't have access to the file structure. Well, unless you go into finder and show package content. But it's the general idea.

And that works well, for photos, that are all the same file, and only opened in iPhoto (and sometimes photoshop using the "open in external editor" feature) where it's okay that you can't see where things are stored, because ultimately, you are creating your own little file system with the events (folders) you put your pictures (files) in.
 
i still dont see the benifit of hiding the file system, obviously its still there if you can access the files from opening the app first.

Just like an iphone, if its not jailbroken you think there is no file system? where are the files store? magic land?

of course not Magic Land doesnt exist the files are stored in the file system, you need to jailbreak to see it.

whats the harm in leaving Finder?

I can still assign files to default apps, I can open all my files my opening that default app first, there is not 1 good point made to how hiding the file system helps anyone
 
i still dont see the benifit of hiding the file system, obviously its still there if you can access the files from opening the app first.

Just like an iphone, if its not jailbroken you think there is no file system? where are the files store? magic land?

of course not Magic Land doesnt exist the files are stored in the file system, you need to jailbreak to see it.

whats the harm in leaving Finder?

I can still assign files to default apps, I can open all my files my opening that default app first, there is not 1 good point made to how hiding the file system helps anyone
The point is most people don't need, or even want to, access a file structure like in Finder.

This is the reason why OS X, Windows and so on have user folders (My Music, My Pictures etc.), there has been a transition towards a hidden file system with pretty much every single major OS update for the past 20 years.
 
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i still dont see the benifit of hiding the file system, obviously its still there if you can access the files from opening the app first.

IMO. It's the advantage of organizing stuff with metadata that matters to your user or app that is the appeal for "hiding the file system". Not hiding the file system itself.

iPhoto lets you view picture collections by events, places, albums, faces. Each provides its own interface. Other apps could do things differently, even with the same underlying data.

The desktop metaphor of files and folders with names and dates is quite restrictive.

B
 
IMO. It's the advantage of organizing stuff with metadata that matters to your user or app that is the appeal for "hiding the file system". Not hiding the file system itself.

iPhoto lets you view picture collections by events, places, albums, faces. Each provides its own interface. Other apps could do things differently, even with the same underlying data.

The desktop metaphor of files and folders with names and dates is quite restrictive.

B

I guess I still dont understand, this idea of no file system or a hiden file system, if i want to move 5 different file types to an external drive i have to open the 5 apps that allow me to view those files than re-save them to the external?

Is it not much simpler to use finder to copy them to the external?
 
I guess I still dont understand, this idea of no file system or a hiden file system, if i want to move 5 different file types to an external drive i have to open the 5 apps that allow me to view those files than re-save them to the external?

Is it not much simpler to use finder to copy them to the external?

Don't think "no file system", think "hidden file structure".

Most people don't move five completely unrelated files from their computer to a USB drive on a regular basis, and if the five different files are connected in any way, most likely there will be an app where they all exist within a project or something of the sort so that you can just export that project.
 
Don't think "no file system", think "hidden file structure".

Most people don't move five completely unrelated files from their computer to a USB drive on a regular basis, and if the five different files are connected in any way, most likely there will be an app where they all exist within a project or something of the sort so that you can just export that project.

do you really think because something is not done on a regular basis you just get rid of the option to do it?

when you say "most likely" or "if the files are connected" your not giving a reason to hide the file stucture your jsut giving answers of how you might still be able to perform certain tasks 'if" it was hidden.

Im more curious how hidding it helps everyone
 
do you really think because something is not done on a regular basis you just get rid of the option to do it?
That isn't what I said.

when you say "most likely" or "if the files are connected" your not giving a reason to hide the file stucture your jsut giving answers of how you might still be able to perform certain tasks 'if" it was hidden.
I'm not saying that it's a reason to hide the file structure, I'm saying that it's a reason to why the file structure doesn't have to be [easily] accessible.

Im more curious how hidding it helps everyone
Accessing the file structure isn't something the average user does very often, and file management has been facilitated mainly by moving the user files further and further away from the rest of the files little by little since almost 20 years. Hiding it away helps make the system easier to comprehend and more intuitive for the user. Or look at how OS X don't have a particularly easy toggle to show hidden files. But as I said, I don't think we'll see an end of file browsers - but I do believe that they're very close to becoming an option hidden away in the "advanced" section.

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Nice!
 
That isn't what I said.


I'm not saying that it's a reason to hide the file structure, I'm saying that it's a reason to why the file structure doesn't have to be [easily] accessible.


Accessing the file structure isn't something the average user does very often, and file management has been facilitated mainly by moving the user files further and further away from the rest of the files little by little since almost 20 years. Hiding it away helps make the system easier to comprehend and more intuitive for the user. Or look at how OS X don't have a particularly easy toggle to show hidden files. But as I said, I don't think we'll see an end of file browsers - but I do believe that they're very close to becoming an option hidden away in the "advanced" section.

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Nice!


ok sorry wasn't trying to change what you said i should re-ask the example i gave about managing(move/copy) files that have nothing in common to a usb drive, your right most don't do this often but could you do it without a "finder", well do it without opening all apps that use those files
 
ok sorry wasn't trying to change what you said i should re-ask the example i gave about managing(move/copy) files that have nothing in common to a usb drive, your right most don't do this often but could you do it without a "finder", well do it without opening all apps that use those files

If these are all files that have nothing to do with each other, and enough people (that wouldn't just activate the file browser) are finding it to be a nuisance having to go through several apps or what have you (kind of like how I'm amazed you can only e-mail one picture at a time with the iPhone without going the way of copy/paste), then I guess there will be an app written pretty soon to facilitate this.

Maybe an app that you open and you first decide a 'to' (e-mail, DVD, USB etc.) and then a 'from' (pictures, documents, specific apps or however you want to have it). Sort of like a file browser, but not really.

But as I said, I don't think file browsers will die. If you want to activate them, fine, but most people really don't need them.
 
But as I said, I don't think file browsers will die. If you want to activate them, fine, but most people really don't need them.

This is ideally what I was wanting to achieve but maybe didn't covey it well - like the Library folder in Lion, it would remain hidden for your average Joe but 'power users' could enable it.
 
This is ideally what I was wanting to achieve but maybe didn't covey it well - like the Library folder in Lion, it would remain hidden for your average Joe but 'power users' could enable it.

Or even as W8 seems to deal with it where the desktop is just another app in the Metro UI. If you never want to see it, you don't have to.

B
 
Reality distortion

Cool idea, one thing I would recommend is that you be a little less vague in the website mockups... it isn't one of the most comprehensive updates it is the most comprehensive update ever.
 
I was thinking of what Apple could do with OS 11, and I was bored this afternoon so I decided to mockup Apple's next OS (Click for larger on all pics):

Nice work OP, at least the graphic part. I must admit I've been thinking of the seeming "cleanliness" of the "bright-on-dark" GUI (like in Aperture).

At the same time, I remember when Apple used to be (all) about usability. Back in the last millennium, when I started creating UI's and got interested in ergonomics and usability, Apple was one of the few companies which cared about Usability, and in many products, this legacy is still strong. Sadly, some divisions nowadays seem to place purely visual design above usability design. These "bright-on-dark" -texts and prompts, while visually appealing are in fact hardly legible for people with even mild visual impairments.

What befuddles me is this trend of making OS X more like iOS. As far as I can see, a huge part of Apple's strength lies in the tight integration of hardware, software and services. The IDEA assumedly being that software and services can be tailored to match the device and it's intended use.

I acknowledge that many laptop users use their computers to do basically the same things as what they use their tablets for. I also acknowledge that a big part of Apple users are computer newbies and would benefit from a GUI, which is easy to adopt. But unless your computer use is limited to only consuming iTunes content or sharing party photos, you need an operating system, which gives you room to grow.

BUT, I do not regard the alternative to do away with files and folders as the right way to do that. In fact, I think it's a horrible idea. File Systems (and their visible existence) is critical for any advanced user. You do not need to be a hacker, programmer or creative professional to need to dabble with details, which are only available on a filesystem level.

Yes sure, relying on File systems steepens the learning curve (I've taught newbies using computers - professionally) and it's sometimes difficult, but everyone gets it sooner or later, and with that comes an understanding on how computers work - also implying what can be done and what can not.

Some commenters here have posted examples of what a filesystem is needed for, I could list a multitude of examples - all relevant to my day-to-day computer use. Just to name a few:
- I, like many other long-time computer users, have a huge archive - most of which just lies around, being used only once in a while. To exemplify: I have close to 3 TB of digital images from three decades, only the last 3 years of these are managed in Aperture. How would I manage this without archive without a File System?
- Also highly relevant: What happens to Application-managed files if the Application disappears? Do they disappear, or do they become (essentially) unmanageable orphan files?

I remember, that during my studies of usability I repeatedly came upon the most basic rule: "the user's data is sacred", implying that it may not be changed without the user's knowing consent and allowing it to be corrupted or lost is the ultimate sin of system design. IMNSHO, the obfuscation of the file system would in fact brake this rule on a system-wide level.

I would not mind an optional "newbie-layer" in OS X (with virtual FS) and I'm sure it could be done with a lot less change to how applications work than switching to a totally obfuscated File System. But the day Apple removes my ability to control my files, I'll switch back to Windows (or Linux).

Pekka
 

I've mulled it over and I think abandoning a filesystem that the user can see may be a bit extreme, however I do think we're heading somewhere similar, albeit not exact, in the next decade.

We can already see this in iWork for iCloud - you open your documents in the app, rather than from the Finder. We've also seen it in apps like iTunes and iPhoto for a while now - you open the app to view the content.

Maybe Finder won't go away entirely - but I don't think it'll be the main way of accessing your files a decade on. It may be relegated to the Utilities folder for users who want it, but it won't be standard in the Dock anymore.

Every app would just open and you'd select what files you wish to view/edit - and it's all stored in iCloud.
 
Wow. I actually really like this. I was just thinking, what if OS XI isn't OS XI, but OS Xi (small i) as in iOS, iPhone, iPad. Not completely iOS, but closer. Complete PC functionality, but streamlined to a mobile interface. And I think it would be much easier to market it as part the i-Device line than OS XI, considering XI doesn't have the same ring as X did/does.
 
Wow. I actually really like this. I was just thinking, what if OS XI isn't OS XI, but OS Xi (small i) as in iOS, iPhone, iPad. Not completely iOS, but closer. Complete PC functionality, but streamlined to a mobile interface. And I think it would be much easier to market it as part the i-Device line than OS XI, considering XI doesn't have the same ring as X did/does.

Thanks!

Interestingly enough, me and a couple of friends were discussing the idea and we thought a small i too. We thought we'd construct some of it out of HTML/js/CSS to see what it'd be like, in the middle of that at the moment :p
 
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