Hidden Gem of iOS6: File Uploads in Mobile Safari
agileleague.com
agileleague.com
It is inexcusable that it wasn't previously possible to upload photos to sites (one of what is now the most common use cases for the internet) without involving a native app. The iOS ecosystem struggles to find a middle ground between native and a competitive/competent browser. This feature was no doubt strongly argued by Apple's PMs for many years, but finally they won out over some other dept's PM team.
We should at least be thankful that it wasn't introduced as a Safari-only feature.
The idea that there isn't a file system is nothing more than a suspension of disbelief, of course there's a file-system, it's just that there are folder handlers that know how to render the contents, it's actually an idea that can be traced back (possibly further to other sources also) to Microsoft's active directory notion. It morphed over the years and never became what was originally planned but iOS is very similar in how it 'hides' the underlying architecture. Camera Roll is ~/Photos + Pinterst-like dynamic grid a la Masonry.
Because many people don't yet know about it? As if people read the "feature lists"...
>It is inexcusable that it wasn't previously possible to upload photos to sites (one of what is now the most common use cases for the internet) without involving a native app. The iOS ecosystem struggles to find a middle ground between native and a competitive/competent browser. This feature was no doubt strongly argued by Apple's PMs for many years, but finally they won out over some other dept's PM team.
I seriously doubt this conspiracy theory. How about, they just got around to it? It also took Android a version or two to add the same feature -- and Mobile Safari has been more feature complete AND faster than the built-in Android "Browser" for years, so it's not like they tried to stifle mobile apps.
(As a matter of fact, when Jobs touted mobile apps as the way to build applications for the iPhone (pre SDK), people were frothing at the mouth, demanding a native SDK).
>Camera Roll is ~/Photos + Pinterst-like dynamic grid a la Masonry.
Nothing like Masonry, which is all about calculating and presenting images of differing heights in a non uniform grid. This here is just a grid, something ages older than Masonry and/or Pinterest.
This is both the strength and weakness of iOS and for the most part, it's a benefit to the vast majority of it's main users (ie, not you or me). Have you looked at a non-techie's folder recently? It's a complete nightmare, and without a really good indexer and search system (OSX is ok, Windows sucks, not sure how Linux fares these days) it's nigh impossible for those users to find their saved documents - was that Tomorrow's Picnic Details.xls or did I convert it from the downloaded .csv? Maybe I only preserved it as an attachment that lives in a mail item in my inbox?
Ideas are one thing, execution is another. The fact that file uploads didn't exist forced app developers to be creative in how they managed local storage on iOS - glad the feature is there now, but I can see why Apple didn't include it originally.
But since ipad1 can never have ios6, you'll have to do alternative methods for any website service you operate for years to come.
They still don't give websites access to camera feed (read or frontal), among other things, so you can't use a website to make a video conference.
And they will NOT do it until the battery, CPU power et al are there to support it running on the browser in the way a random website wants to handle it.
But even before then there was a trick to using HTTP POST for browser uploads in Android. iPhone could never do that.
You can use that browser with any version of iOS you like. It was my go-to browser on both iPhone and iPad up until Safari in iOS 6 gained a few of iCab's features. I still use iCab on iPad, however, for the ad blocking.
<input type="file" multiple>
And you can also set an access type:
<input type="file" accept="video/">
<input type="file" accept="image/">
I didn't know about it and I watched the iOS6 presentation, skimmed through the iPhone 5, iOS 6 apple.com pages, regularly read 2-3 Apple websites + HN, and am a web developer.
My bet that Apple will provide something similar in the future. It's just too good. All that sharing stuff in Android, i really miss it on my iPad, it's imo the biggest feature difference between those two OS today.
Maybe iOS 7.0?
One major benefit is that Apple will be able to support JIT'd WebViews outside of Mobile Safari, without a privilege escalation.
[1] http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/MacOSX...
It's great news (especially in regards to Nitro-ed UIWebVIew), but still it's short of what intents are able to do. For example, I don't suppose it would be possible to "announce" to the system that I, for example, do "image editing" by getting a "png, jpg, pdf" and returning a "png, jpg, pdf". XPC would mostly be used in a single app for further sandboxing and increased security/stability.
"Services" have been part of iOS/OS X since the late 80s/early 90s with NeXTStep, the precursor to both.
I don't think Apple is deliberately not allowing services/intents in the manner you describe, I think it's just taking them a long time to figure out how to do it within the process and security model they are trying to enforce in iOS.
This is really a lowest-common-denominator for file transmission - for example, until recently my mom couldn't upload her photo on meetup.com due to this limitation (she uses only an iPad)... I figure Apple cares more about her needs than mine (saving specs.xls into a JIRA).
Any other file uploads (docs, etc) are likely better handled by an app or simply email.
I think that hidden gem has a couple chips in it.
Spoiled brats we used to call them in school.
You mean like the hundreds of standards they adhere too, from POSIX (OS X is a certified UNIX OS), to all the networking standards, unicode, MIDI, OSC, VPN, ... whatever?
Or several they have released themselves for wider adoption, like the HTML5 Canvas thing, CSS transitions, Webkit, LLVM, Rendevous, etc?
Not even sure what you wrote means...
Anyway, this is good news for the web. Hope the browsers on tablets go beyond their 'mobile' paradigm and there is increase both in horsepower and adoption of web standards.