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Okay THIS is interesting. Actual productivity coming to iOS?!
Hahaha, some will knock their heads on the table now, repeating "oh no, we all bought this for playing around, does that mean we'll have to actually do things now with the iPad?"
 
I'm shocked the first couple of comments are all positive ones. Guess all the trolls are still sleeping. (which is kinda telling as to where they come from)

Cue all the "WTF Apple, took you long enough", "as always, Apple is behind. Android has this for years", "Tim Cook should go" and "Still think i'm going to be disappointed today" in a few hours when they wake up. Prepare yourselves.
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LOL. How is this any different? There is already a file system called iCloud drive or whatever storage service.

Local storage? That's what it sounds like to me.
 
Apple gave the iPad a little love in iOS 9, but as a whole, could do a better job of tailoring iOS for tablets.
Until there's a lot more functional integration with macOS then iOS will remain a small device/consumer oriented platform. Perhaps the Files thing is a move in that direction, perhaps it isn't.
 
The Files app is more like an "intelligent folder" in Mac OS, or a Folder containing aliases, not real documents. The documents are inside the application-defined space, under sandboxing rules. The Files app creates aliases of those documents, by means of rules or dragging and dropping them from the "file selector".

Simple, but a must for the iPad Pro line!

I don't know if Apple was waiting for APFS. That could explain we had to wait so long!

That would make sandboxing quite redundant if you ask me. Unless an app can explicitly choose to allow external aliasing and access to a specific subset of files, it probably won't be much different than completely breaking the sandbox.
Instead, if the sandboxes stayed the way they were, and the Files app was like a public folder of sorts, it would make more sense.
 
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If Macs are to eventually go the ARM route then at some point won't all/most of the Utility Mac Apps like Activity Monitor, Disk Utility etc etc. all have to be released in the app store as iOS compatible apps?!

(Obviously Disk Utility would have no real practical application on an iPhone or iPad due to lack of ports, but for an ARM based Mac with USB-C ports it would have the same use as it always has)

No. If Macs go ARM, they'll go ARM with macOS, not with iOS.

I'm not sure you get what I mean. If Apple went to ARM for Macs then they'd probably use a beefed up X variant of what they use now in the iPad Pro's etc. Mac OS would need writing for ARM (Which I'm sure they have internally) and so would all of the support apps that come with Mac OS - they'd work on any 64-bit supported iOS device aside to the new line of macs, rather than be developed for them specifically.

Kinda seems like you've answered your own question: no, moving the Mac to ARM has nothing to do with the App Store, or with iOS-compatible apps. It also has little to do with whether they use Apple A-series chips, Qualcomm chips, or something else altogether.
 
So much excitement over one word and a icon whose functionality or purpose is completely unknown.

Thus why I said hope its not a let down

I cannot believe how people are whining 'no file management boohooohoooo' but haven't found this in the process of looking for an alternative.

I've tried it, it doesn't do what I want it to do, its not baked into iOS enough and it doesn't solve any of the issues.
 
You must be fun at parties.

He's actually right. People love to whine and moan about "it was better back then"...the same people who say bad things about the Post-Steve era, which has been pretty great, if we're honest. The same people who say "meh, I want iOS 6/Snow Leopard" etc. Apple is still on top. Tim is doing a great job. It's a shame people don't see it through their rose-colored glasses that only the Steve-era products could be great. Ridiculous. I liked Steve as much as the next guy but the Apple of now is doing just fine and still making great products.
 
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I really want full background sync when the iPad is loading (even with screen turned off). Maybe even with Cloud-Plugins for Dropbox, OneNote (comparable to the adblocker plugins for safari).
 
I don't see how a file manager will be beneficial for iPhone users.
let me break it out for you then.
1st Case: You record your voice and then to listen it faster or slower "You need another app for that!" You share it and now you have 2 copies. There's a section to be edited, another app for that. You tap share button and this your third copy. Let's say Google Drive is your go to app for sharing things on the go; fourth copy. The first two are original recordings and the last two are edited versions.
2nd Case: There's a markdown document in your OneDrive space. OneDrive can't open it. You need an app for that. You edit it, put it back to OneDrive and the result is 3 different copies so far.
Edge cases? Maybe for snapper kids...
I don't know how many duplicates I have in my iPhone and iPad anymore. It most certainly would take me hours to clean those. At this point, only a built in version control app would help. On my Mac? I have none! Perfectly clean.
 
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I'm hoping this Files things means we can attach external media and move files between them, with the ability to create and organise folders. THAT'S what I want.
 
Great news.

Let's hope the open/save dialogs are consistent at the app level too. And clean up the broken Share Drawer. And drag and drop.

I'm getting greedy...

Broken share draw is my number one. I have files I know I can open in certain apps but they are missing. Having a files app should fix all of that as a universal place to open files from. It's just plain annoying having a file inside an app then not being able to open it without first saving it to another app or the iCloud Drive folder.

I know why Apple went the app specific route originally but now iOS is being used like a pc it needs to have universal folder storage. So we can do away with this download to the app behaviour that is causing so many issues.
 
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let me break it out for you then.
1st Case: You record your voice and then to listen it faster or slower "You need another app for that!" You share it and now you have 2 copies. There's a section to be edited, another app for that. You tap share button and this your third copy. Let's say Google Drive is your go to app for sharing things on the go; fourth copy. The first two are original recordings and the last two are edited versions.
2nd Case: There's a markdown document in your OneDrive space. OneDrive can't open it. You need an app for that. You edit it, put it back to OneDrive and the result is 3 different copies so far.
Edge cases? Maybe for snapper kids...
I don't know how many duplicates I have in my iPhone and iPad anymore. It most certainly would take me hours to clean those. At this point, only a built in version control app would help. On my Mac? I have none! Perfectly clean.

It's been possible since… iOS 8? 9? for apps to support file sharing without requiring a copy. It requires the apps to support it properly. That's why sometimes share links will say "copy to", and sometimes "open in".

So, your scenarios aren't current any more. And the Files app won't fix them anyway, since those apps will still need to properly implement handling one and the same file. They can't just access the file transparently, due to the sandbox.
 

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Open Files and your phone is now detected as a universal mass storage device with fatx filesystem. Storage size options and file management possible within the app.
 
Sorry for assuming you were just parroting things I heard before instead of it being the actually genuine question that it was.

No problem! In text form the actual connotation can get lost sometimes, and upon rereading my original post I realised that it really could have been interpreted the way you did. No worries, and thanks for the details!
 
Who is going to (try) download ios 11 today? I will try to upload the link in here, you guys should do the same! Always stressy, the hunt for the beta profile lol
 
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