Using an iPad - was krankshaft format solution found

[Carl Edlund Anderson]

On 11 Apr 2011, at 15:11 , Arin Komins wrote:
> Well, I'm more thinking of Apple's basic design: where they don't even 
> have a "Save as" feature in the damn web browser.  Yeah, there's lots of 
> ways of bypassing that, but it certainly shows you that Apple really 
> doesn't believe in local storage much anymore :-(


I dunno -- I wonder if that is more of a legacy of what they thought when they originally designed the iOS architecture, and a file system on a mobile device perhaps seemed less practical.  You can certainly buy iPads with more storage space than probably most people need or use, and your iTunes purchases are still stored locally.

The lack of a normal file management system on the iPad is a silly thing, though.  I do get around it, but it would be better of course if I did not have to get around it.  One presumes one could be bolted on .... or that future tablets will just run what are currently desktop OSes, much as current "netbooks" do (counting on eventual convergence between netbooks and tablets, or that the latter replace the former entirely).


> (something I've bemoaned in recent iPods, for instance.  Never enough damn 
> space!!!)


Agreed, though I think that has more to do with the size of my music collection compared to those of the masses. :)


> I'm fully expecting the next gen iPods to try to pull off cloud only, with 
> some laughably small amount of local storage.


:)  I think we're a (relatively) long way off for that to that to become practical.  Sure, it will become practical more quickly for the masses who have small music libraries and relatively mainstream tastes.  

The major stumbling block would not be technology, however, but the awesomely horrendous issues of licensing to mobile roaming devices from a cloud.  This is what keeps iTMS tied to particular countries, and prevents a simple, unified international store-front.  With the model that even digital music is sold as a "physical" object, you are entitled to buy your musical property anywhere and cart it around with you.  However if your your music is in the "cloud", then that's more like "broadcast", and a wild array of business entities may or may not own the rights in any given location -- and you would have to pay them (assuming that's even possible).  You might step off a plane and discover that vast swathes of your favorite tunes were suddenly inaccessible or accessible only if you re-bought them.

I am not sure how Amazon's cloud plans get around this.  Possibly they assume that you have bought a "physical" MP3 and they are hanging onto a backup copy for you.  But, anyway, the whole business model is not at all prepared for this kind of thing.

Cheers,
Carl

--
Carl Edlund Anderson
http://www.carlaz.com/