

The Finder is dead.  - thedob
http://sachin.posterous.com/the-finder-is-dead-soon-a-pc-wont-have-files

======
jawngee
This article is full of flaws.

Finder was just rewritten from the ground up, from scratch. Heavy investment.

Spaces is about windows management, which has nothing to do with Finder. Same
with Expose.

iPhone and iPad deal with files, one way or the other.

~~~
a4agarwal
the finder was rewritten (so i was wrong about that) but it didn't
functionally change. Apple isn't actively innovating within the Finder.

Spaces and Expose are not "Finder" directly, but they are still concepts
trying to deal with the issues around windows, multiple apps, and sharing
between apps.

~~~
rbanffy
Look at Gnome shell for some fresh desktop innovation.

------
Zak
Do not want.

Limiting the amount of interaction the end user has with a hierarchical
filesystem may well be a Good Thing. Increasing the degree to which each
application is a black box containing all associated data is a Bad Thing.
Making each application responsible for the mechanism by which data can be
transferred, archived and synchronized is also a Bad Thing.

~~~
jf
Excellent point. As frustrated as I am with the limitations of the "file" and
"directory" abstractions. Without them, transfer, archival, and
synchronization of data would likely be far more difficult than it is now.

Not that the systems we have now are anything to be proud of.

~~~
protomyth
It seems Apple has evolved the iPad past "application / data - same place". It
now looks like a common area with different types of data accessible by apps.
This is actually a pretty good solution. People know how to use a search
engine and the current hierarchy is not a good solution.

------
hughw
Yeah. The command line is dead too. That's what purists believed in 1986. The
Mac killed it. Except, it just keeps coming back because it's so danged
useful.

~~~
ROFISH
How many people do you know, whose job title does not start with computer
and/or IT and/or sysadmin, actually use the terminal?

Think of this as a "meta-filesystem". Instead of asking the OS for files and
folders, an app just asks the OS for "photos" or "music". Most people, and by
most people I am referring to the lowest common dominator like your
grandmother, don't care where a file is and actually constantly loses where
files are.

As with all things Mac, since Apple obviously dogfoods their systems and
servers with their computers, the filesystem will not go away. But it will be
hidden from the bottom 99% technical layperson who simply doesn't care. Files
and Finder, like Terminal.app, will be there for those of us who do care.

You need to differentiate between what's good for the people/commoner and
what's good for the developer/pro-user, since they are in _extremely_
difference market segments given technical proficiency.

~~~
frossie
_How many people do you know, whose job title does not start with computer
and/or IT and/or sysadmin, actually use the terminal?_

Loads. They are called working scientists. Sometimes there is a perception
that the world is divided into geeks and "appliance" users. There is actually
a non-trivial amount of grey area in between.

~~~
glhaynes
Why do those scientists have to use the terminal?

Not a snarky question: I'm not very familiar with scientific computing and am
curious (from a UI perspective) why, say, applications for office work manage
to keep things essentially all in the GUI, but apps used by scientists can't.
Is the problem that scientific apps don't devote enough resources to
good/comprehensive UI or is it that what scientists do is better done from a
command line?

Regardless: as I said elsewhere in this thread, this is why I'm starting to
think of PCs/Macs as the workstations of this era. There will always be a need
for them. But they're probably needlessly complex for most uses.

~~~
frossie
To answer your question, there's a number of reasons. Undoubtedly some do just
come down to "historical reasons" but there are many reasons why a command-
line is actually the right choice. The main reason is that the scientist wants
to run a very specialised analysis of her data, and so is almost certainly
either running custom code, or at least code that was developed in an academic
environment. Creating GUIs that are flexible enough to cover all the things
somebody might do with their data is a complex and time consuming task, and
does not directly produce "science". It is a lot easier to use the command
line to interact with your dataset. Moreover you often don't know what you
want to do in advance ("if we knew where we were going, we would't call it
reasearch"). Therefore a typical user may fiddle around with the command line
trying to get the most out of their data, and then string it all together in a
script - so again, a command line makes a good prototyping environment.

Certainly in my area (astronomy) I have seen some attempts to provide gui
based intefaces to data reduction, and even mocked up a few myself; but the
effort to reward ratio isn't worth it - especially since you are dealing with
people who can, in general, follow instructions.

Also, do not underestimate the higher effiency of the commandline - after all,
there is a good reason _we_ all use it. Even if there was a system
administration gui out there, would most sysadmins use it? It's actually
faster to type.

I think the "appliance" model of computing (eg. iPhone/iPad) is perfectly
valid for a good percentage of the population at least for some of the time,
but it won't render "classic" computers obsolete.

I also have to say that personally, I have generally been dissatisfied with
attempts to disguise or flatten the filesystem by, for example, using tags
instead. I actually think pretty damn hierarchically, so I often organise my
material as IF it was a filesystem, when the application will allow me to do
so - maybe it's just me?

~~~
glhaynes
Excellent answer, thanks, and I think my (also-hierarchically-inclined) gut
agrees with your last paragraph: if you're gonna expose a complex filesystem
to the user (and, for many usages, that's a good thing), hierarchical — with
metadata/content indexing for fast querying — is probably the way to go. I'd
like to hear of situations in this area where people think a tag system
is/would be better than the hierarchy+index system, though.

------
teilo
One of the reasons I love the unix world and despise Windows is precisely
_because_ things are not in black boxes. I can read and parse log files.
Config is in text files that can be grepped. Automated processes are run from
scripts that I can open and examine. Very little is done in a walled garden
closed binary format. Even Apple's applications are folders inside of which I
can find yet more scripts, text files, resources, etc. When something goes
wrong I can usually figure out why. When something fails for some god-knows-
why reason in Windows, I get an error box, and nothing else.

Please don't try to hide the guts of a system from me. It is the thing I value
most about my Mac.

~~~
glhaynes
This is exactly why I think "computers" (using the 'folk' parlance here: I
know iPhones and iPads are "computers") are on their way to becoming,
essentially, workstations.

Complicated tools to do complicated things.

I don't see any reason that the Mac should ever move away from having Finder
and Terminal (though they will become less and less used by the average user),
but the vast majority of things that "end users" do with computers don't need
to deal with this sort of stuff. The tools to make end user tools (end user
tools such as device OSes, apps, and server software for end user apps to
interact with), will always necessarily be of another level of complexity.

Let the Mac stay a Mac (read: UNIX), I say. But I don't want to do most of my
non-techie stuff on it anymore.

------
thedob
While 90% of the time I agree with the ease of sandboxed and cloud-synced file
management, there's still that 10% of the time that I'm annoyed by it.

If I want to copy, rename, share, or email a specific file I find it easiest
to do it in the file. I find it almost as easy to do it in an app that
facilitate it easily like iPhoto (with it's built in share and email buttons).
I find it much more difficult to do it in an app that doesn't make it quite as
easily facilitated through the UI, like iTunes.

I would love for the finder to go away, but I'd hate for it to go away at the
expense of every app developer having to rebuild mechanisms into each app to
expose general file manipulations that the finder handles quite well right
now.

------
philwelch
In June or so (according to macrumors:
[http://www.macrumors.com/2010/01/23/mac-
os-x-10-7-appearing-...](http://www.macrumors.com/2010/01/23/mac-
os-x-10-7-appearing-in-web-logs-dev-release-at-wwdc/)) 10.7 will be pushed out
to developers at WWDC and we'll see for sure. Personally, I can't stand this
speculation that, just because Apple designed an iPhone and iPad, that they're
going to cripple the Mac. I think if they think people will be better off with
a limited device, they'll just try and sell them an iPad instead of a Mac.

Hierarchical file systems aren't terribly usable--how many people do _you_
know who just splay all their files across their desktop--but I can't imagine
Apple replacing it with just an app model. (Personally, I like Gmail's
archive/label/search system for a filesystem UI, but it's hard to see what
wrinkles we'd run into translating it into a general FS.)

------
lurkinggrue
Yay! Lockin!

The future is one big black box that it difficult to manage or migrate.

~~~
ugh
Doesn’t have to be, though. Can’t you have both?

iTunes does pretty well but doesn’t make it all the way. More a fault of the
of metadata than iTunes. You are be able to access your music the old-
fashioned (crappy) way – which doesn’t make any sense for music – but there
you go. All nicely organized in folders. That’s how it should be. I want
specialized apps, I don’t think any generic file browser could be as feature
rich as specialized apps without turning into some kind hybrid monster and
usability abomination.

So it’s possible. Sure, it’s also hard.

~~~
habitue
It's possible sure, it's not hard, Apple will just never want to do it. Just
like Microsoft, lock-in is not something they want to avoid.

------
aarongough
I hope I'm not alone in really disliking the current over-use of the word
'App'. An 'App' is merely a shortening of 'Application', they are not
different things. Even on the iPhone an App is still just an Application.

Postulating that the current model of user's interacting with files mostly
because Applications are now called Apps is faintly ludicrous.

On the other hand I think that hiding the intricacies of the filesystem in a
user-friendly way would be welcomed by most people that use a computer for
non-technical purposes. It certainly reduces the likelihood of problems caused
by accidental deletion of config/application data.

------
Qz
This is exactly why I hate iTunes and the Apple ideology. I was using it for a
while before I decided that the UI sucked for my massive collection of music.
But getting those files out of proprietary codecs is a pain. No I do not want
your monolithic Apple apps.

------
DrumLady
It may not be dead, but its been in perpetual suck-mode for multi-monitors
since its inception.

------
jsankey
It seems unlikely that the file system would disappear/become inaccessible
altogether. Sure, when you want to edit photos you should have to dig around
in folders. But existing apps already insulate you from these details - just
by layering suitable abstractions over the file system.

Having the more general layer underneath gives you more power when you need
it. It also gives all apps a simple, standard place to store their data. The
raw file system has been slowly losing its prominence over time, but I really
don't see a benefit in scrapping it altogether.

------
mikecane
Macs will be touchscreens. The OS will look like iPhone OS. This is not hard
to see.

Web Designers: Wake Up And Smell The Touchscreen Coffee!
[http://ebooktest.wordpress.com/2010/01/31/web-designers-
wake...](http://ebooktest.wordpress.com/2010/01/31/web-designers-wake-up-and-
smell-the-touchscreen-coffee/)

Edited to add: This does not necessarily mean access to the CLI will be taken
away. I think Devs would revolt over that.

------
johnrob
I think you can go one step further and assume the browser is going to be the
only app most people use. It's happening on the desktop, and there's no reason
the same phenomenon won't happen on devices.

If this seems far fetched, look at it this way: most desktop apps are becoming
more like browsers given how they use the network. Spotify is a perfect
example (for those who've used it).

------
BoppreH
This is bad. Sure, you can make the user forget about files most of the times,
but not _kill_ it completely, because:

1) It'll be a hell of work to parse everything. Should my music clips go into
the music folder or video folder? Sure, you can associate file extensions, but
what if the software isn't installed yet? If two programs have to share files?
The relations can fail in too many ways.

2) All software to ever run in this machine would have to fully implement it's
own "file explorer". The picture manager will have to be able to rename,
organize move files, as will the document editor, the video player, the text
editor...

3) Less freedom of movement. What if I want to send a set of videos, documents
and audio files to someone else? Would I have to open each app and politely
ask it to send an email (which they will have to implement, too)? What if I
want to backup an entire hard drive, with hundreds of different file types?

3) It'll be a complete hell if things go wrong, and you will have to resort to
file management anyway. File lost extension somehow? Major file extension
conflict? Unknown file type? You are screwed without manipulating the files
themselves.

And don't even get me started on the reliability of your "in the cloud"
future.

------
AndrewDucker
In this delightful future, how do I change the app I use to edit my photos? Or
change the app I use to listen to my music?

~~~
a4agarwal
Every app should be able to access the music, photos, videos, and other files
on a system through smart APIs. But the user doesn't need to know about it or
manage it

~~~
AndrewDucker
So the user is going to be able to organise their files through smart apis,
but doesn't need to manage it? How's that going work work?

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cmelbye
Has this guy seen the video for the iPad announcement? It makes it pretty
clear that Apple intends on keeping Macs as the high-end/advanced machines,
the iPhone as a somewhat limited portable device, and the iPad situated
comfortably in between.

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luckyland
I don't see why the Finder and file concept have to die just because personal
computing's storage model is evolving.

In fact Finder capabilities should only grow as many people choose to de-
centralize and sychronize their storage.

------
rbanffy
And so, the gap between those who can make and those who are limited to
consuming widens. A computer ceases to be a bicycle for the mind and becomes
just another environment for consumption.

Is this really what we want?

------
mattezell
I, for one, hope not - not specifically Finder, but the file/folder model in
general.

I cringe every time I HAVE to drop to shell just to manipulate a specific file
the way I would like to.

------
Tichy
Try attaching a photo from iPhoto to an Email.

~~~
george_morgan
The file browser in OS X shows the iPhoto library in it’s source list.

~~~
Tichy
Not on my Mac, OS X 10.6.2.

~~~
george_morgan
Any Cocoa application (it’s an Apple thing obviously, so it’s only going to
work if the application is using their file browser), File > Open. Source list
on the left, under the “Media” heading find “photos”. All there, browsable by
events and groups, or as a continuous list.

------
moron4hire
A 10% market share company is going to change the face of computing... in a
way that everyone has been predicting for the last 15, 20 years? I somehow
doubt it.

~~~
blehn
To be fair, they were a 0% market share company when they changed the face of
handheld computing (iPhone).

~~~
moron4hire
Has it? The iPhone is popular with geeks and rich folk, and mostly only in the
US. Last I checked, such people weren't the majority of people. The iPhone has
certainly pantsed WinMobile and Palm... but those were pretty easy targets to
begin with. They haven't even come close to touching the global Symbian
marketshare.

~~~
blehn
Who knows how accurate this is, but AdMob reports the iPhone as having a 50%
share of the _worldwide_ smartphone market. Moreover, even if they had a 1%
share, I'd still say that Apple has utterly transformed that market. Any new
versions of WinMo, Palm, Blackberry, Symbian, Android, etc will be influenced
by and compared to the iPhone OS.

src: [http://www.tgdaily.com/mobility-features/49169-report-
androi...](http://www.tgdaily.com/mobility-features/49169-report-android-
based-devices-threaten-iphones-dominance)

