I’ll admit I’ve only skimmed the recent “is iPadOS holding the iPad back?” posts from Federico Viticci, Jason Snell, John Gruber, and others. The iPad isn’t part of my routine now that I’m back to using the Kindle for e-books.
Apple has had a decades-long battle with window management generally and the Finder specifically. At Ease, Simple Finder, Launchpad, Stage Manager, iOS Files… But it turns out the Finder is great. You could go a long way just by replacing Files with a touch-optimized Finder.
I wrote the above and then went back to Federico’s post, where he actually highlights this same point:
After seven years, I’m starting to wonder if maybe it’s time for Apple to scrap the Files project and start over with a new app based on the strong foundation of Finder. We’re well past the point of excusing the Files app for being a young file manager; when you’re spending $3,000 on a high-end iPad Pro with plenty of storage, you want the app to manage that storage to be flawless.
Apple could do this even without turning iPadOS into a true fork of iOS. Boot the iPad into a new Finder that mostly obsoletes Springboard and Files.
