> there's no file manager
Is there one on Android?
Is there one on Android?
Also, Android phones work just like a USB drive if you want to drag and drop files then access them from another computer later. You can store anything you want and create your own folders, unlike the iPhone where you can only sync certain media types through iTunes. That's what I was referring to with the file manager thing, but I'm not sure how to say that succinctly...
A feature that you think is critical is a feature that is critical for you. The refrain that iOS suffers from a lack of file exploration or drag and drop of any kind of content is based around the assumption that everyone wants that. Most people don't.
I personally see having more options and choices as a great thing even when I don't personally need those options.
Even if I think the default android keyboard is the greatest touchscreen keyboard in existence, I still think it should be possible and easy to use another keyboard app instead.
It's Apple's party, and they'll approve if they want to. They just don't, because they don't think it's what the majority of their customer base wants.
The latter does not deflect the original criticism thrown at Apple here, they are overly restrictive to the point where it's bad for their users.
I think that is a valid point to raise against Apple without meeting a blanket "You bought their product and that's just how they roll". Under that, no company can be criticized for anything, ever.
Yet Astro file manager has 35 million downloads. Perhaps you and your peers are not a representative sample.
Second, if file management was a feature that people were crying out for in droves they'd either not be buying into iOS or they'd have created such a furore that Apple would have implemented it. Apple has responded to platform criticism by implementing the functionality as iOS has matured, they've just cherry picked what they're implementing to deliver the functionality that has a benefit to the most people. Aside from the obvious missteps like Newsstand or Passbook anyway.
If people want to manage files on a smartphone that's fantastic, there's a platform for them. Why is it a negative point that there's a platform that has a different opinion? It's not, there's a wealth of choice from smartphone players now.
Back when I used Android (owned a Nexus One which broke), I had to manage files all the time, because the individual apps didn't do a good job of it. Instead of having a centralised place for photos, I just dragged photos to /sdcard from my computer, and looked at them that way. When I had to put music on my phone in a hurry, I did the same, and navigated to them in the file manager instead of having it in the music app. I had a bunch of Markdown files that were there, too, whenever I synced manually. Now I can do all that without having to worry about where the files are, using iTunes and iCloud.
Since then, every time I've seen someone have to open a file manager, it's to do a job an app could have done. That's why Apple doesn't want to include one - it gives users more functionality, but makes app developers lazy. It's the same reason they haven't decided to include a stylus: it's technically more precise, but would just cause developers to think "don't worry about finger click targets, the user has a stylus".
Example: try attaching an excel sheet you received from a friend to another email.
Example: the powerful Android "share" mechanism --the sole reason I have several iPads but switched to Android for real work (ie on my phone). Share is not limited to a bunch of "friend-aware" apps, but every app can register themselves as a "handler" for particular data objects (files), e.g. "picture" "pdf document" etc, and when you hit "share" all of these are shown in a list. No more circuitous nonsense where you have to open a file in goodreader or save it to dropbox first, so you can access it with another app, which speeds up things tremendously.
I think it's pretty safe to say that moving data from one app to the next is something everyone needs.
Even my mother has a problem with that on her iPhone. I installed her Dropbox and hooked up some of her apps on the same phone to the same account so that apps can share common data. Otherwise you have apps that take pictures and you can't mail out those pictures etc.