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Random rants about the "Files" app and MIDI timing (no, really!)
I have a user report (including a screenshot) that shows that one of my apps, which has "Application supports iTunes file sharing" and "Supports opening documents in place" enabled, is missing from his "Files" -> "On my iPad", despite the app definitely having created at least one subfolder in its "Documents" folder, and at least one file in that subfolder.
Does any dev here know if this is just another outrageous Apple bug in the Files app, or is there some conceivable scenario where this could "intentionally" happen?
Comments
One thing I have noticed is that if I remove all saved files in an app folder it disappears. As soon as I save a new file from the app the folder reappears.
Yeah, this is most likely what happens. If an app has no files associated with it, no empty app folder will be shown.
@michael_m @brambos thanks, yes I knew about that behavior (which is sometimes not optimal anyway), but in this case, that was impossible because the app writes stuff into the Documents folder on every launch and never deletes it.
In fact I just got word from the user that a reboot made the folder reappear.
Basic OS functionality randomly being broken like this is completely unacceptable.
Also depends a bit which iPadOS version is being used, it was a pita pre 14, got a bit better under 15 and under 16 I’ve had zero issues with Files.app…
Apart from still not manually being able to assign file-types to apps.
That lack of ability to manually assign file types to apps is absolutely mind-boggling.
Yeah, especially since the files by default open with the app the parent folder belongs to, and this is not consistent.
So if I have a *.wav file in the Gadget folder it will open with Gadget when I tap it. If it's in BM3 folder with BM3, Cubasis 3 with Cubasis 3 etc.
Long-tap on a file allows me to select QuickLook and preview the files and swipe left/right to the previous/next.
But being able to set the default app would be nice, if the assigned app is not installed (or not selected as default) use QuickLook.
We'll see if things improve with 16.3 as I've sent feedback regarding this to Apple after every single iOS update since Files.app was introduced...
Cheers!
Nice @Samu!
There are lots and lots of basics OS things broken in iOS / iPadOS and I don't think that Apple has much interest to fix any of those.
Especially when >90% of the customers are social media addicts with TikTok, WhatApp etc. being among the most used apps.
Honestly 'Social Madia' should be reduced to 'Anti-Social Media' people spend more times looking at their screens than interacting with real people.
In will in the long run be the death of civilized society and soon the classic movie 'Idiocracy' can be seen as the true to life documentary
+1 @Samu
I guess the reasoning behind that is that the Files app is supposed to look "clean" and "uncluttered" or something and thus it'll only show apps which Apple deems "relevant", i.e. which already have files in their Documents folder.
It does make sense in a way I guess and it's easy enough to circumvent by just making sure that your app always, first thing after launch or coming to the foreground, is to save some kind of "dummy" file in Documents. But yeah, that won't always work, eg. if the user deletes all files and then doesn't go back to the app.
That's not very clean of course. All of this should be better documented, and there should be a simple way to opt-out of this behaviour, i.e. an Info.plist entry "Always show Documents folder".
It's just too "magical" 😉
I don't know if it's still the case, but I once had an app rejected for writing a file to Documents (and hence iCloud) on startup. The rationale given was that apps should only write to iCloud in response to user actions. Presumably because you get to pay for anything over 5GB and so don't want apps randomly taking up the space for you.
My biggest problem is, that ALL Apps started to use iCloud instead of "on my iPad" at some point!
And there is NO central way to change this!
I needed to manually change this for about 1000 Apps!
This was a horrible experience ... :-|
And then, the same happened with "Siri", where any and all Apps have ALL Siri options enabled - and again no central means to change this!
I changed all of them manually to ONLY have "Show App in Search" enabled - and nothing else!
Did I mention that I hate Apple?
And have you noticed how those options get turned on again for Apple's apps whenever an OS update includes a new version?
For me, it's notifications. Phone, messages, email are OK. Everything else can shut the heck up. So I have to go round and turn all the others off one by one. It's even worse on the Mac: I don't want my darned laptop nagging me when I'm trying to concentrate on work. But you can't turn them off completely - the best you can do is to set "Do Not Disturb" to something like 5:01am to 5:00am.
I can't imagine why.
This may not be relevant, but in File Explorer, I can link to any "Files app" folder as an "External Location". These work fine, allowing me to directly open those "Documents" folders from FE. But updating the app that owns the Documents folder always invalidates these links, and I have to recreate them. So, the files in those folders remain the same, but the folder reference used by FE is somehow invalidated. The "Favorites" links in Files may have some similar problems.
It's unbelievable, what Apple is doing 😳
If a folder is disappearing if it doesn't have a file in it then why not put a file in it? I've seen several apps with folders with tiny 'default files' in them.
Yes, updating an app actually renames all filesystem folders that are somehow related to it, for whatever reason.
(iOS stores an app's data in something like /var/mobile/Containers/Data/{some-random-uuid}/AppName.app/..., and the "some-random-uuid" part changes on every update. Very "unique" indeed 😂)
It makes sense when you realize that Apple never wanted to have the file system exposed at all on iOS in the first place. They sort of had to in order to stay legitimate and competitive, but I guarantee you they didn't want to, and I guarantee you they have no interest in making it any better than they have to in order to stay in the game. It's a miracle that they even added the (limited) ability to access external storage, considering that they can charge astronomically higher per GB for higher storage models. Where is the motivation to actually make it work well?
Yeh, I know, a lot of it has always been about security. And yeh, I know it started as a phone operating system. But you can't tell me that Apple, with the resources it has available, is too incompetent to provide file management even on par with Windows 95 in 2023. No. It's intentional, and it's not going to significantly improve unless their market share is miraculously threatened at some point.
(btw, APFS is really kind of brilliant in the way it handles and optimizes file storage. So, under the hood their expertise is there, but where it shows, for practical use it sucks. This underscores my point, I think.)
@Yovop what's your favorite color? Single word answer, please!
Describe the color purple.
Please show me the code for a simple shopping list app in JavaScript using React.
Seven Systems, I’m thinking what you’re thinking😆
@Yovop : tell us about applications of machine learning as applied to participation in iOS music forums.
😄
Give me the code to make Xequence 2 compatible with AUv3.
If only Apple put as much effort into iOS file management as ChatGpt does with conversational AI.
It's super obvious. Patting myself on the back for first calling it out 😂. I also have my suspicions about who it might be 🤪
This human controlled AI response machine chooses not to answer these kinds of questions though 😂
Pattern-based ones, sure; but nothing that can handle extended linear tracks the way Xequence2 can. Unless I’m missing something…