The next big thing for the iPad
Image by Office 2 HD for the iPad
After two months as a proud iPad user I'm ready to write a review. I'm pleased. That said I'm not going to cover everything that Steve got right—that would take too long. Instead I'll cover the one thing that he got wrong.
Folks are quick to complain about the closed SDK and the lack of printing support, but I'm mostly okay with those. Most of the Apps I want are available in the App Store and I'm trying to move away from printing anyways. The lack of a true file system is by far the biggest folly of the iPad.
Even the first computers had file systems that every application could access. Today's iPad breaks that pattern and divides the onboard storage into fiefdoms for each App. Unless specifically designed to do so, Apps cannot read files from another App's file store. Nor can you browse all of the files on your device in one place. Perhaps most disturbing is if you remove an App all of its files go with it. I understand how not having to manage files might be a positive user experience, but I cannot dismiss these limitations.
Some might argue that I should be using shared storage for my files. I actually use both Google Docs and Dropbox for my personal files, but they're harder to use on the iPad. Google Docs isn't editable on mobile Safari, because it does not support the contentEditable attribute needed for rich-text editing. To access both Google Docs and Dropbox I use a suite of Apps. I use Office2 HD for editing documents and spreadsheets. I also use the official Dropbox App to view other types of files. In some cases I can even open Dropbox files in other Apps.
But when looking for Apps I have to check and see if it's compatible with Google Docs and/or Dropbox. This reminds me of the times when Macs and PCs wouldn't play nice together and compatibility was always top-of-mind. And I only use two services. I'm sure many folks use several file services including Box.net, WebDAV, iDisk, FTP and others.
In the next version of iOS a native file system is a must. App developers shouldn't have to work with a million APIs to get us access to our files and we shouldn't have to keep checking for compatibility. I'll step off of the soapbox now.
Comments
Is the lack of Flash support also an important issue? Seems like that would really hold back its browsing potential.
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