I'm sure there is a use case for sharing files between applications beyond what we currently have (Photos, Contacts), but, in the 5+ years I've been using my iPhone (and it's 200+ current apps installed currently on my phone) - I've never run into it. I (personally) love the fact that everything is reasonably sealed off. In fact, the major problem I had with the iPhone was that it allowed applications to access my address book without my explicit permission (since resolved) - it wasn't sealed off enough.
I'll be the first person to sign a petition requesting that Apple continue to enforce their absolute separation without really explicit guidance from me. The tradeoff (lack of flexibility versus increased security) is one that I'm very happy to make.
I ran into that on my first day, and a bunch of times since. I guess you've never been in an airport, and realized you left that audio book at home, and though to yourself "Oh, right, I'll just copy it over."
Surprise, unless your scp application has a built in audio player, tough nuggets.
It's infuriating when you're dealing with ebooks in other languages (particularly Japanese) as iBooks and a bunch of other apps are not very good at supporting these. With no way of sharing books between apps, you wind up needing to find a new way to smuggle your book app to app in order to find out that this one doesn't work, either.
I'm sick of all the apple apologists acting like this isn't a pain point or that inability to do these things is somehow good. It's bad, it's a major pain point, and it's not about malware. It's about limiting your choices.
I'm also willing to attribute the lack of app-app sharing of data to intellectual cowardice.
I'm not an Apple apologist. They make some miserable choices, and a some of their apps are complete crap (Their podcast app should have never, ever been released.) I've never been happy with any of their cloud applications, mobile me was crud, their web photo sharing system is still next to useless, and photostream is barely useable - you'd think after a couple years they would have been able to figure out how DropBox syncs so reliably. Battery Management is horrible - I can't tell what's heating up my iPhone and sucking down my battery. Background applications STILL can't download files, even when you have 100% battery, are plugged in, and are on WiFi (Seriously - when is Apple ever going to figure that one out - When will my NYT app be able to download a newspaper, OmniFocus Sync my Tasks, Downcast download my Podcasts, etc..).
I could go on and on about the things I don't like about Apple, and Apple products - but, the one thing they nailed is 100% App Separation on the iPhone. Malware is already starting to make it's way onto the iPhone, and the more they can do to lock down that platform, the happier I'll be.
Does this mean that I don't have the flexibility with my Phone that I have with my Laptop? Yes. But does it mean my phone is about 10x more consistently reliable than my Laptop - Also yes.
But, with all that said - could Apple come up with a mechanism to allow some kind of Inter-App sharing, wherein you could explicitly (I.E. User Initiated, not App Initiated) send data from one application to another - Almost certainly. John Siracusa has been on them to do this for at least a couple years now - and if they'd simply use one of his (very well informed) rants as their PRD, the IOS platform would certainly evolve. But I'm hoping they do it in a way (Copy / Paste?, Sharing Icon?) that guarantees the same level of separation, reliability, and simplicity that we currently enjoy.
Until then - Media viewing/consumption apps like GoodReader usually offer a pretty broad variety of input options, including just reading from your Dropbox folder (among many, many choices)
Ummm.. they did. [0] Let me know if you have any questions, happy to answer them but I really get the feeling you're not an actual mobile app developer?
Definitely not a mobile app developer, actual or otherwise. But, as a user, I look forward to the day when I can, say, take a newspaper article, and send them to GoodReader, or grab my boarding pass on singapore air, and put it into Omnifocus.
It is a little frustrating when I see the Doc/Object right in front of me - and I can't send it anywhere.
My current model of sharing files/docs between Apps is usually to Take a screen shot with the Home/Power button, which gets it into my camera roll, from there I can copy/paste the image into various apps that take paste.. Screen Shot + Camera Roll + Copy/Paste is my current iPhone Inter-App sharing process. I have to believe there is something more efficient in the future.
I'll be the first person to sign a petition requesting that Apple continue to enforce their absolute separation without really explicit guidance from me. The tradeoff (lack of flexibility versus increased security) is one that I'm very happy to make.