Becoming Truly Mobile
Coming closer to the promised Post-PC era
There have been multiple occasions throughout the last year or two where I’ve wanted to live in the Post-PC era that Steve Jobs claimed we entered nearly 5 years ago.
“I’m trying to think of a good analogy. When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks. But as people moved more towards urban centers, people started to get into cars. I think PCs are going to be like trucks. Less people will need them. And this transformation is going to make some people uneasy… because the PC has taken us a long way. They were amazing. But it changes. Vested interests are going to change. And, I think we’ve embarked on that change. Is it the iPad? Who knows? Will it be next year or five years? … We like to talk about the post-PC era, but when it really starts to happen, it’s uncomfortable.”
Five years later and we’re still stuck in this awkward, drawn-out transition away from the PC and forward towards mobile/cloud-based computing. What’s making this transition so unbearably difficult is the way in which we manage our jumbles of files: photos, music, videos, documents — what ever you create or consume — it seems to always get stuck somewhere.
Before I sold my MacBook Air in the attempt to usher myself into the Post-PC world, my workflow for my photography consisted of importing my images via the SD-card slot and into Lightroom to sort and edit. Documents were created in Word. Videos were either viewed in iTunes or on Netflix in Safari. The problem with having a 128GB Solid-State Drive was that nothing fit onto it — I had to offshore all of my media onto an external hard drive and always have it plugged in when I needed to access just about anything. When iPhone editing apps became more powerful, I then had to find a way to transfer my photos from my computer to my phone that didn’t make me want to kick myself, and when it came time to import more photos I had to make sure my external drive was plugged in. This drawback always made me feel limited in terms of freedom of mobility, constantly having to be tied to a flat surface and a hard drive at all times (at least if I wanted to do anything other than browse the web or use Spotify).
Enter the iPad.
The greatest aspect of owning an iPad is the freedom of using it just about anywhere. With a laptop, you’re expected to use it while sitting because, well, have you tried using one while standing? The iPad Air 2 is thinner than a pencil and weighs less than the bottle of water in my right hand. The only devices more portable than tablets are, of course, phones. Phones can fit in your pocket, and pockets are quite possibly humankind’s greatest invention. Unfortunately, not all tasks (working, reading, watching videos) are greatly suited for a phone. The iPhone 6 Plus is too small for a tablet and too big for a phone; the iPhone 6's perfect size (opinion) still isn’t enough for when I want to view, sort, edit, and upload my day’s worth of images, which can range from 100 to 3,000 on any given occasion.
The first problem when moving away from the my Mac is the same issue when using it: storage. With only 64 gigabytes on my iPad, space gets limited fairly quickly. With that being said, there’s only three real-world solutions to get more storage for the endless pile of data: buy a higher capacity iPad, buy a wireless external hard drive, or throw everything into a cloud storage service.
Let’s eliminate the first two right off the bat; buying a higher capacity model isn’t a viable option for most people (including the painful process of having to sell your current model) and wireless external drive technology isn’t quite yet ready — most drives I’ve tested are meager and unreliable and always have to be accessed via the manufacture’s crappy iPad app.
Truly Mobile
My experience with using cloud-based platforms like Dropbox, Google Drive, CloudApp, OneDrive, iCloud, and Copy has been a rough ride lasting nearly 4 years. I have tried setting camp on every cloud and still have yet to find a decent home. Each experience has been overall sub-par — interfaces are slow, complicated, and nothing feels truly “synced”.
I primarlity use iOS devices, so I’ve attempted to create a workflow with each cloud storage provider that integrates well within Apple’s mobile operating system. I used a Mac when uploading mass amounts of files to the cloud that needed prolonged syncing. I’ll be discussing the three primary services that I found to stand out amongst the rest.
iCloud and iCloud Photo Library
iCloud should be my obvious choice since its created by the same company that I use my computing devices; however, I’ve found the iCloud experince to be the least practical and most difficult.
iCloud, the re-birth product of MobileMe, was first introduced during WWDC in 2011. From Apple’s press release:
“iCloud is the easiest way to manage your content, because iCloud does it all for you and goes far beyond anything available today,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. “You don’t have to think about syncing your devices, because it happens automatically, and it is free.”
iCloud management is not easy, and it is most certainly not free. During its debut, the initial pricing for iCloud was 5GB free, 10GB for $20/year, 20GB for $40/year, and 50GB for $100/year. Yikes. The idea of storing all of your documents and media in iCloud was basically impossible until later on when prices were updated, now offering up to 1TB of storage & on a month-to-month basis to compete with other lower-costing platforms.
When the pricing was updated to a “fair” cost (iCloud is still the most expensive choice), I gave the service a try by purchasing 200GB of storage and moving a large amount of my files into the cloud. I encountered some issues right off the bat — files were terribly slow to sync, even on my 5mbps upload speed, organizing photos between devices was a mess, and forget paying an additional $25 just to sync my music in iTunes. Getting access to my files was a straight-up pain in the ass, especially considering that Apple didn’t create a standalone iCloud Drive app until last week at WWDC in the iOS 9 beta. Accessing iCloud via the Mac is no easy task either, you can only manage files via a shortcut in the Finder Sidebar — it’s not even in the Home folder!
I also tested the beta for iCloud Photo Library: once again the painstakingly slow uploads (which stole about every last drop of my bandwidth) deterred me from uploading more than a few hundred photos before deciding to back out all-together. Keep in mind I have about 500GB worth of images I have to transfer from my external drive. Organization for all of my photos was flat-out impossible: creating folders in the Photos app on iOS is limited to just creating Albums. No thanks.
Overall, iCloud Drive and iCloud Photo Library might be best-suited to those who stick with taking pictures on their iPhone & want them automatically backed up to iCloud without ever having to worry if they’ll have enough space. On the iPhone, uploading photos is simple if you have few and sync them to maybe 1 device. The optimization of storage feature is great if you want quick access to photos without their full-resolution taking up space on your device. I wouldn’t recommend iCloud Drive for storing files; the awful management system is not nearly powerful enough, even for an iOS device. iCloud Drive is great for backing up your devices to the cloud in case something were to happen to them — when plugged in and connected to wifi iCloud will automatically back up all of your devices information that can be restored.
Google Drive
Prior to earlier this year, I used Google’s wide-array of services for just about everything: E-mail, Calendar, Drive: it all worked fairly well, however I found that a lot of Google’s services don’t get along too well with Apple devices. For most cross-platform uses, Google is probably the way to go for most users. Google Drive offers competitive pricing and an excellent interface for all of its apps, whether on iOS, Android, or any desktop OS and web browser.
My experience with Drive came to a close when Google began implementing its new Material Design interface; the UI became too simple in terms of functionality & the look was appauling in my eyes. After the curtain being pulled to reveal how Google frequently looks at a user’s files for certain advertisement purposes, I’ve since taken my online privacy seriously and embarked on a mission to find a more private alternative.
Dropbox
Dropbox is my primary source of file-storage. With the simplest interface and best overall functionality, Dropbox is the largest, puffiest, and prettiest cloud in the sky. I pay for a Pro account which lets me utilize a breadth of features that makes my overall transition into the cloud more comforting and easy to use.
Dropbox has a terrific iOS app, web interface, and even the best desktop application. Of course there are limitations: organizing files can be a daunting task initially, but once you develop a clear way to sort files and understand the power behind the app, it becomes easier to use on a daily basis.
Even though I use Dropbox as my cloud storage device, there is still a gray area for overall file management on a mobile device. The Mac has Finder, the essential file-manager that gives the user complete access to everything on its internal drive, whereas iOS has no such functionality. This is where the ultimate tool comes into place: Documents, an app by Readdle.
Documents allows you to get files from your computer, sync with Dropbox, iCloud, other cloud services and any source you can imagine. You can also download files from the Web using built-in browser. Organize the files into folders for your convenience using the brand new file manager.
With the ability to access files from multiple cloud storage providers, this app is the #1 companion for any Apple device; a Finder for iOS. The app’s most killer feature is the ability to perform synchronization between changes within the app and cloud services. I’m easily able to manage all of my Dropbox files and folders within the app and any changes I make can be synced back to the cloud. One of my biggest gripes about Dropbox’s iOS app is syncing files to the device is fairly underpowered; with Documents I can enable two-way synchronization so locally-downloaded files that are changed will automatically be changed in Dropbox (similar to the desktop experience).
Nearly every app with a Share Sheet in iOS 8 is compatible for all file types; this allows me to take full advantage of the iPad as a workhorse. I’ll import my photos via the camera connection kit into the Photos app and create a folder labeled with the date in which taken. From there I can access the iPad’s photo library within Documents to copy them over and organize, edit, and sync them to Dropbox while keeping the original file names intact — my biggest complaint with Dropbox’s Camera Upload feature.
This workflow, albeit blunders at first, is a step forward towards a desktop-like experience on a mobile device. Once learned, it becomes simple, intuitive, and it just flows. On the iPad I’m able to utilize the power of the millions of apps within the App Store, a truly mobile device, and the power of desktop file management while having my files synced to the cloud where I can access them anywhere. The experience is getting closer to the Post-PC era — arguably the most difficult aspect is getting thousands of files into the cloud, which takes days even on decently fast internet.
Although there’s still more work to be done with software utilization to increase productivity, Apple really took a leap forward with iOS 9's new split-screen functionality. The most difficult aspect of working on an iPad is opening/closing apps for referencing any other application. With these fixes, the iPad is one step closer to becoming a Pro device and not just for content consumption. Perhaps Apple will even find a way to create its own version of Finder in iOS, which would truly enhance the experience on a tablet or smartphone.
Maybe in the next 5 years?
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