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Interesting since just the other day I read an article on how lack of access to the file system in iOS was one of its significant drawbacks. Specifically the lack of ability to browse and attach multiple files to an email, etc.

I agree it's confusing for a lot of users, but I still think there is a happy medium in there.

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Or not. A large class of people have simply never used the filesystem at all. Everything on their PC went onto the desktop or default directory. They used the "Find..." dialog to locate everything they used, etc... These folks are well served by the "modern" app-centric abstractions, and frankly will be harmed by an attempt to show them the filesystem.

But the rest of us are harmed by hiding it (badly, sometimes). I'm not sure there is a happy medium; I suspect to some extent we filesystem-conscious few will simply have to learn and use two UX environments.

I agree that there are definitely cases, attaching multiple files being one, where the lack of file system access makes the process more difficult or impossible. However, I think that there isn't really a "happy medium" in terms of whether direct access to the file system is provided or not, there is either access or there isn't. Rather, one possible solution is to put the onus on the app developer and allow apps to present files that can be "public" within the phone and accessible to other applications. Obviously this opens a worms in terms of security, which I think is one of the main reasons that Apple has not done this.

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