Mountain Lion brings new iOS-like file handling, iCloud App Library features
After introducing Auto Save and Revisions to OS X Lion, along with initial support for iCloud, the next major release of OS X dramatically changes how users can interact with documents.
Mountain Lion borrows the streamlined, graphical presentation of documents from iOS, where users select documents in apps like Apple's iWork without navigating through a hierarchical file system. In iOS, an app's documents are stored within the app's sandbox, and each app can only see their own documents.
iCloud works the same way, storing an app's Documents & Data unique to that app, a security measure that prevents rogue apps or malware from deleting, accessing or modifying data they are not authorized to use. Apple refers to this convention as an "App Library."
Currently, iOS 5 versions of iWork already take advantage of iCloud documents. In OS X Mountain Lion, apps will be able to take broader advantage of the same type of documents integration, paving the way for a new version of iWorks that accesses documents from the App Library the same way Mountain Lion's other apps do.
In Mountain Lion, Apple presents a new file dialog with two options: the conventional file system under "On My Mac," and an App Library, an iOS-like depiction of the app's own iCloud files, portrayed similar to iOS apps, with the same ability to be organized into "Folders."
A graphic published by PCWorld depicts how this appears within the Preview app, with various iCloud documents from Preview's cloud based App Library appearing on a linen background similar to the Templates selection of iWork apps.
Apple is also refining how related document handling features, such as Auto Save, Duplicates, Versions and Time Machine, work, making it simpler for users to work with files.
In Mountain Lion, Auto Save can now automatically create and save new iCloud-based documents in apps that support the cloud service. When users Duplicate a file, it will be easier to give the duplicate a unique name. And when users activate Time Machine with a file selected, the system will now present that documents Versions rather than a more general view of all their backups.
98 Comments
Partitioning documents by applications they belong to had been proven to be foolish in Windows years ago. This smells like trying to monopolize document use.
Can we see more stupid ideas from Apple like this?
The company transformed radically from what I saw in 2004/05 when I joined bandwagon after dumping Windows and Linux.
Creating a cult out of technology corporation has never worked well for consumers. I have another proof now.
Oh and BTW smuggling agendas under cover of "better security" is no the best appraoch either. This does not have anything to do with better security. Those who know it will hack it soon one way or the other, but we will be living in strict and inflexible world sharing documents only the way Apple allows us.
It all looks good. Saving directly to the cloud is great. Ultimately I want less clicks, however. Its hard to design something that requires less clicks per use, yet requires little to no pre configuration such as in a simplified set-up, where everything is saved locally and duplicated to the cloud except certain app's files (200mb + PS files, for example)
Anyone using a mac in a business, large or small, will have hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands of documents created by key applications. Sorting documents by applications would be insanely dumb. What has traditionally made the Mac great from the very beginning, in addition to the ease of creating documents, was the ease and flexibility of organizing documents. Each mac user could organize their world just the way they wanted it. If Apple has forgotten this already, I'm looking into the options for reincarnation.
this sounds as an amazing idea.. it would be so simple.
but,
what about those files that you can open with more than one program?
this sounds as an amazing idea.. it would be so simple.
but,
what about those files that you can open with more than one program?
Not an issue because every single file extension is only paired with one app as the default. So if your Mac has switched all .MP3s to open with QuickTime X instead of iTunes they will show up as QuickTime X apps. At least that's how I understand it.