Behind the iPhone’s shiny body: How iPhone can save files?

It’s been a long discussion on how to make the most of iPhone’s large storage space, and most importantly is how we can save files into it rather than just viewing them for a brief moment only?

So far until now, Apple has been limiting our access to iPhone’s hard drive. Plugging and syncing it with Mac or iTunes, is not working either. Should you crack open the newly purchased iPhone, just so you can play around with the huge storage in it? Well, don’t. Although I’m sure you won’t do it, don’t even think about it. ;-p

Jason Snell from Macworld, has came up with some thoughts on how Apple can workaround the save files limitation on iPhone:

I don’t think exposing a full filesystem is the right answer here. Perhaps iPhone applications could register as handlers of certain file types. Then if you found a spreadsheet in your e-mail (or on a web site), you could hold your finger on it, prompting your iPhone to ask what you want to do with the attachment—with options such as viewing it in Quick Look or opening it in your spreadsheet-editing program.

That handles the opening-files issue. (Saving them on the device isn't a problem — every iPhone program can save files into its own special space.) And getting the files off of the phone might not be a big deal, either. If Apple can give programs the ability to pass their documents to the iPhone’s built-in e-mail program, it’ll be easy to get those files back off your phone just by mailing them off.

As good as every ideas thrown to resolve the problem, they’ll do no good unless someone can actually make them come true. Some have done great job, for providing iPhone owners a real solution to freely access the storage within. Such as the DiskAid and FileMagnet apps, that I have discussed before at PalmAddict.

Hopefully, someday Apple will realize how “uncommon” it is to limit the users of iPhone to access their own device’s storage space. Free to do what Windows couldn’t do, isn’t that the spirit carries by that ‘Get a Mac’ ads? It shouldn’t be the other way around, don’t you think?

[blogged with my Treo 750v]