The end of the Folder and the way of the Sync

At the time of this writing, Mac OS 10.7 is due to be previewed, for the first time, by Apple.

I won’t go much into predictions of what might or might-not be on it. For the first time in a while I have almost no clue about what new features this new OS might bring (other than that Mail and iCal will probably be much more MobileMe and iPad like, but this is not an original idea whatsoever).

It is, non-the-less, a very highly anticipated announcement, mostly by Apple nerds.

For starters, those of us that adopted Apple computers before the advent of iOS devices have been feeling somewhat neglected on the Mac side of Apples’ business. The last OS was just a polished version of what is now a three years old piece of software (Leopard). 

Three years for a completely new OS might not seem as much, but these last three years have been game-changing both for Apple and for Operating Systems in general, mainly due to one pesky little device that keeps creeping up: the iPhone.

Or rather: the iPhone OS (now called iOS).

With the advent of iOS a movement that was having it’s baby-steps leaped into full-blown teenagery, complete with it’s first peachy mustache: the replacement of a files-and-folders-driven Operating System to an App driven one.

On the Mac, and even before the iOS, the apps were gradually taking over: you didn’t opened MP3 files, you opened iTunes. JPEGs were nowhere to be seen, hidden inside an Aperture or iPhoto library. Just like it was with emails and Address Book contacts.

But you still had the Finder. You still had a Downloads folder, and a Documents folder.

On the iPhone you don’t. Nor in the iPad. And amazingly, most of us don’t miss it.

Sure, we have to change the way we think a little. No longer can we press a download link willy-nilly. 

But for day to day use this limitation doesn’t even come up. We find a link to a video, we press or it to watch it. We come across a picture we want to save, we can copy it to our Photo library, if we wish. To install applications there is no need to download a ZIP file or a DMG, we go to the App Store and look for the app we want.

This does complicate the way we load up content into the devices, thought, and it’s been a source of discontent mostly regarding the iPad and the iWork apps (especially if you want to work in one document both on the iPad and on a Mac), but times are indeed a-changing and my guess is that really really soon there’s going to be a good solution for that.

You see, I no longer have to worry about my text files. I don’t because I have Simplenote on my iPhone, and I have Notational Velocity on my Mac. And they sync. They sync wonderfully! I write stuff down in one place and it shows up in another, even if I have both apps open at the same time. I have no idea where those files are, but I don’t need to, because I interact with them through the different apps interface.

This sort of sync system works not only for text files (although it is were it’s most prevalent), but it’s also starting to creep up on different kinds of media, like with the new AutoCad iPhone and iPad app, which allows syncing with their own server, which in turn can be accessed through the upcoming AutoCad for Mac.

Instapaper is also a great example of syncing done right. I no longer have a “Read and Review” folder on my Mac. I just send everything up to Instapaper where I know I’ll be able to read it anywhere I’ll like (I just wished it supported PDFs).

So most of our apps have taken over our files and we don’t even realize it, but the interesting thing is that many iPhone and iPad apps are the only way we can consume certain kinds of media.

Like Books.

When Apple introduced iBooks (initially for the iPad and later on for the iPhone and iPod Touch) the app itself was nothing new, nothing particularly innovating. We already had the Kindle and Classics apps for the iPhone. 

The really interesting part of it was that this was the first Apple app for the iOS devices (that is not device-specific, like the Phone or Messages) that doesn’t have a Mac counterpart.

Because for the iPod app we have iTunes, for Safari we have Safari.app, for Mail we have Mail.app and for Calendar we have iCal. The same with iMovie, Pages and Keynote.

But Books are stored in iTunes. And if they’re ePubs and not PDFs you can’t even open them on iTunes.

And, although iWork for iPad apps now support MobileMe iDisk, the whole process is far from simple since it doesn’t save into iDisk by default nor the Mac counterparts read from iDisk by default. And they couldn’t because iDisk is part of the MobileMe package, which is a paid service and not widespread through Apple users.

So if I was a betting man I would guess that a new OS would greatly simplify this process. Would create more and better bridges between what we have in our pockets and what sits in our desk. And would make it so you didn’t have to worry about files and where they where located. You just had to worry about actually using them in whatever way you wanted to.

And, I don’t know, maybe a certain Data Center might have something to do with all of this?